


Fact or Fiction?

by Benevolent_Despot



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-08-30 06:17:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8521756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Benevolent_Despot/pseuds/Benevolent_Despot
Summary: The entire team watched as Hanamaki held his phone out to Oikawa, who took it tentatively. Looking down at the screen he was more than a little surprised to see that they hadn’t been looking at a picture or video at all. It seemed to be a normal website. His relief vanished as he read through the site. He could feel the blood draining out of his face as he skimmed the rest as quickly as possible.“W-w-what is this?” he stuttered. A few people shifted uncomfortably, as though not admitting it aloud would somehow make it go away.“Your fan club has an entire website dedicated to you and Iwaizumi.” Or: After Oikawa discovers Oikawa/Iwaizumi fanfiction, he decides to try his hand at writing. It goes about as well as could be expected.





	1. Chapter 1

In hindsight, Oikawa could say with certainty that it had been Hanamaki’s fault. He could ascribe most of the compromising situations that he had been in to Hanamaki. Or Matsukawa. Or some terrifying combination of the two.

 

It had started when he had walked into the locker room and found everyone huddled in a circle, staring and Hanamaki’s phone. On any other day he would have thought that it was a meme or a strange video that he had managed to find somewhere in the recesses of YouTube, but all of the club members wore horrified expressions, which suggested it was something outside the usual.

 

“Oh god,” he groaned. “Please tell me you are showing our impressionable kōhai a shock site or hentai or something equally vulgar.” He dropped his bag on the floor, mentally steeling himself for whatever they had chosen to share this time. He really hoped that it wasn’t bad enough to warrant phone calls from angry parents. He had enough on his plate as it was.

 

Hanamaki and Matsukawa looked up, devious looks crossing their faces simultaneously. Oikawa took a step back. This couldn’t be good. He wondered if he ought to start composing a letter of apology.

 

“Us? Never.”

 

“Yeah right,” Oikawa said. He held out a hand. “Give it here. I need to know what exactly I’ll be receiving complaints about.”

 

“On my honor, it’s nothing that you and Iwaizumi haven’t already consented to,” Hanamaki promised, holding a hand over his heart. Matsukawa winked at him.

 

Oikawa let out a snort. “You don’t have any honor. Now give it here.”

 

Hanamaki clutched at his chest. “You wound me, captain.”

 

“Besides,” Matsukawa said, “you’re one to talk. We’ve seen some of the bookmarks on your phone. Your mind is about as pure as a Jew eating pork on the Sabbath.”

 

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Oikawa sputtered.

 

Hanamaki turned to look at Matsukawa. “Mattsun, he’s not denying it.”

 

“That’s because you’re being ridiculous!” he yelped. The two ignored him.

 

“He should show us his phone.”

 

“Just to prove his innocence.”

 

They turned to look at him “Come on Oikawa, we know that your password is Iwaizumi’s birthday.”

 

Oikawa gripped his phone tightly, torn between fleeing the locker room and kicking Hanamaki and Matsukawa off the team. There was no way they could know about that. He kept his phone with him as much as he could, and locked it away during practice because he _knew_ that the two would do terrible things with it, like spam his contacts, take a million pictures, and hack his Facebook and Twitter accounts. He had only kept those bookmarks because he had been sure that they would never get to it.

 

How did they know what his password was, anyway? He made a mental note to change it when he got home. Maybe make it Iwaizumi’s birthday backwards. That seemed like a solid password.

 

After gazing at him for a moment, fully aware of the mental breakdown he was experiencing, Hanamaki and Matsukawa whispered to each other, then looked back at Oikawa.

 

“Out of the goodness of our hearts, we’ve agreed to let you off the hook.”

 

“But,” Matsukawa said, holding up his index finger, “if we show you, you have to promise not to freak out too much.”

 

“Fine, I promise,” Oikawa said begrudgingly, hoping that his relief wasn’t obvious. “Just let me see it.”

 

The entire team watched as Hanamaki held his phone out to Oikawa, who took it tentatively. Looking down at the screen he was more than a little surprised to see that they hadn’t been looking at a picture or video at all. It seemed to be a normal website. His relief vanished as he read through the site. He could feel the blood draining out of his face as he skimmed the rest as quickly as possible.

 

“W-w-what is this?” he stuttered. A few people shifted uncomfortably, as though not admitting it aloud would somehow make it go away.

 

“Your fan club has an entire website dedicated to you and Iwaizumi.”

 

“Why are we….” he struggled to finish the sentence. “Why are we doing … things … things together?” He stood there for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts as the while everyone stared at him. “And why was a volleyball involved?” he finally wailed.

 

“I think we broke him,” Makki whispered gleefully.

 

“Volleyball is your first love—or second after Iwaizumi. It only makes sense that you would have a three way with the two things that you love most in life.”

 

“Wait, are we sure that volleyball and Iwaizumi are his top two. I mean, what about milk bread?”

 

“Please don’t say top,” Watari groaned. He looked as sick as Oikawa felt.

 

“Hm, I’d definitely rate that number three. Someone should write a kink about that.”

 

“Oh god, please don’t ruin milk bread for me,” Oikawa pleaded, practically throwing Makki’s phone back at him.

 

“What’s going on?” A door slammed and everyone clammed up as Iwaizumi walked into the locker room. No one wanted to share the newly discovered … literature … with their already temperamental ace. “Please tell me I didn’t hear the word ‘kink,’” Iwaizumi said, giving Oikawa, Matsukawa, and Hanamaki pointed looks.

 

“Why are you looking at me?” Oikawa protested.

 

“I’ve seen your phone, Shittykawa. And believe me, it’s a mistake I’ll never make again.” Oikawa’s pale face instantly turned red.

 

“Lies,” he hissed as Makki and Mattsun high fived each other.

 

“I told you so,” Makki stage whispered to Mattsun.

 

“I never doubted you for a second,” was Mattsun’s reply. “Our relationship is one of perfect trust.”

 

“Oh Issei.”

 

“Oh Takahiro.”

 

They embraced each other, and Oikawa gagged loudly, though he was grateful for the distraction.

 

“So what were you guys talking about?” Iwaizumi asked again, choosing to ignore the scene as he threw his bag onto one of the benches and began fishing around for his uniform. “And if it’s something perverted, please don’t tell me,” he added, pulling his jersey out and laying it next to his bag.

 

“Oikawa was sharing his kinks with us.” Matsukawa poked his head out of the crook between Makki’s head and shoulder, responding before Oikawa even had a chance to think of something to say.

 

“Why is everyone picking on me?” Oikawa all but sobbed, folding himself into a corner as though he were trying to escape notice.

 

Iwaizumi made a face. “I knew I didn’t want to know,” he said, pulling off his shirt.

 

Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at his naked torso, seeing his body in a whole new light after having read about him bottoming for Oikawa. Looking at his muscular body, they were all having a lot of trouble imagining him as a bottom, which meant that they all had the image of him topping _and_ bottoming burned into their minds. Kindaichi, whose face was red as a tomato, looked ready to explode, and immediately bolted from the locker room.

 

Iwaizumi, more than a little confused, glanced around after tugging his jersey on. “You guys didn’t do something to Kindaichi, did you?” he asked suspiciously. “You’d better not have talked about kinks while he was in here.”

 

“Nope!” Hanamaki and Matsukawa chorused together.

 

“They only violated the purest creature in this world,” someone muttered. Iwaizumi let out a long-suffering sigh, mentally preparing himself for a talk with Kindaichi. Maybe he should just refer him to a therapist this time. The other third years had probably given him PTSD by now, and the year had barely begun.

 

“I really have to do everything around here, don’t I?” he said out loud as he tried to think of what to tell the first year. If what Oikawa had said was anything like the website Iwaizumi had accidentally seen on his phone, then he was going to have to recap at least half of Oikawa’s life, focusing primarily on his growing obsession with aliens. God, he really should get paid for this.

 

Oikawa, having deemed it safe to come out of hiding, emerged from the shadows. “There is no ‘I’ in team, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa sang, trying to change the subject to something—anything—else. He skipped up to the ace, prepared to drape himself over him, but stopped short. He was acutely aware of the rest of the team’s eyes on him. He knew they were all thinking of the ways that Oikawa had been draped over Iwaizumi in the story on Makki’s phone.

 

“Yeah?” Iwaizumi said gruffly. “Well there’s no ‘U’ either, so how about you do us all a favor and leave.”

 

“Meanie,” Oikawa said, settling for sticking his tongue out at his friend. Iwaizumi only rolled his eyes.

 

“What, are you two or something?”

 

“That would explain a lot,” Kyoutani muttered darkly. He clearly hadn’t appreciated being dragged into this any more than the rest of them.

 

Iwaizumi started to unbutton his pants, and everyone chose that exact moment to vacate the locker room, following closely behind Oikawa, who had practically steamrolled over everyone. Iwaizumi stared after them as they shoved each in their effort to escape. “I should definitely get paid for this,” he repeated to himself, already ready for the day to be over.

 

***

 

Practice was weird, though it wasn’t quite as bad as Oikawa had anticipated. There was an unspoken agreement that no one was ever going to mention what they had read while in the locker room. Iwaizumi, both fortunately and unfortunately, wasn’t exactly privy to that knowledge, though, so he was completely oblivious to the reason behind Kindaichi’s obvious discomfort as the ace tried to talk to him.

Oikawa briefly considered stepping in, but decided that would do more harm than good. Maybe he would send flowers or something to Kindaichi as an apology. He felt like an accomplice in what seemed to be Hanamaki and Matsukawa’s effort to purge Kindaichi of his innocence. The boy was practically the definition of innocent, so they might as well be trying to kill him.

 

When Iwaizumi finally gave up on his awkward effort to have a conversation, he jogged over to Oikawa, smacking him on the back of the head.

 

“Ow! Iwa-chan, whyyy?” Oikawa cried, checking his scalp for the bump that had to be developing.

 

“You know why, Crappykawa,” Iwaizumi growled. “I don’t know what you told Kindaichi, but I’m pretty sure that he’s scarred for life. Could you please save your weird talks with Makki and Mattsun for another time? Or better yet, don’t have them at all. You guys have reached a whole new level of creepy.”

 

“It’s not my fault,” Oikawa insisted, trying to salvage some of his dignity. “I was framed! I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

 

“Suuuure,” Iwaizumi drawled, looking entirely unconvinced. “Even when you don’t start shit, you still find some way to get involved.”

 

“I need better friends,” was all Oikawa could think to say.

 

“By all means, then, please find new ones.” Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. “You’re lucky I didn’t dump your ass back in middle school. You couldn’t pay anyone to be your friend now.”

 

“That’s not true,” Oikawa said, pouting slightly at the insult. “Everyone loves me.”

 

“We should take it to a vote.” He jabbed a thumb over at Hanamaki and Matsukawa, who were whispering back and forth to each other as they stared at Oikawa. “I’m sure that tweedledee and tweedledum would be more than happy to collect the results.

 

When Oikawa didn’t reply, he followed his line of site to Makki and Mattsun, who were now making kissy faces at them. “Oh my god,” he grumbled. “Can they really not be left alone for more than five minutes?” He stomped across the gym with an expression that suggested he was about to inflict some sort of divine punishment on them. Hanamaki and Matsukawa, well aware of what was about to happen, fled in opposite directions, leaving Iwaizumi to choose which of the two to pursue.

 

The rest of practice continued normally, for which Oikawa was extremely grateful. He’d experienced enough public humiliation to last him the rest of the semester—possibly the rest of his life.

 

When practice ended, though, everything descended into chaos. Each of the club members seemed to be debating the best course of action as they walked back to the locker room. Kindaichi and Kunimi immediately grabbed their bags and left without even bothering to change. Yahaba chose to change in one of the bathroom stalls, while Kyoutani and Watari stood stiffly in front of their lockers, changing out of their uniforms without looking at anyone else.

 

Only Hanamaki and Matsukawa were acting normally, and Iwaizumi knew that something was up when the two of them were the normal ones of the group.

 

“What the fuck is going on?” he asked, staring around the clubroom. “Oi, Shittykawa! Where the hell are you going,” Iwaizumi barked. Oikawa, who had been trying to slink away to the bathroom stalls, as well, stopped in his tracks.

 

Oikawa opened and closed his mouth several times before walking back to his locker, his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Nowhere,” he said quietly. Iwaizumi shook his head, beginning to wish that he had been the one to go to Shiratorizawa. At least their team seemed somewhat sane.

 

The room was silent as everyone changed, sans the occasional banter between Matsukawa and Hanamaki, which was confined to their corner. Oikawa felt guilty as he pulled on his casual clothes. As much as he teased Iwaizumi, he hated making his friend feel left out. While the ace frequently stated that he wanted nothing to do with their shenanigans, Oikawa knew that in spite of his protests, he enjoyed their pranks and inside jokes. He couldn’t remember the last time that Iwaizumi had been excluded from something like this.

 

That being said, there was no way in hell that he was ever going to explain all of this to Iwaizumi. It was difficult enough to change in the same room as him without remembering the descriptions of Iwaizumi writhing beneath him in pleasure while Oikawa— Oh god. No, he wasn’t going to think about that.

 

He could feel a blush starting to spread across his entire body, and he tried to ignore the heat pooling in his stomach. This was what disgust felt like, right? That was what you were supposed to feel when you read about yourself and your best friend doing unspeakable things to each other.

 

Oikawa was on the verge of slamming his head against his locker when he felt Iwaizumi’s eyes on him.

 

“Are you OK?” he asked, the crease between his brows growing deeper.

 

“What? Me?” Oikawa’s voice was just a pitch too high. “Of course, of course,” he said, trying to bring his voice down an octave. “Never been better.” He felt a pair of strong hands grab his shoulders as a cool cheek rested against his forehead.

 

“You feel really warm,” Iwaizumi said, completely ignoring Oikawa as he tried to squirm out of his grasp. “You better not be getting a fever. I’ll kick your ass if you get me sick.” He grabbed both of their bags and pushed Oikawa towards to door. “C’mon, let’s get you home.”

 

“Iwa-chan, I can carry my own bag,” Oikawa protested, but the dark-haired boy just let out a grunt, slapping Oikawa’s hands away as he tried to pull his own bag off of Iwaizumi’s shoulders.

 

“You guys are locking up tonight, right?” he asked, glancing over at Hanamaki and Matsukawa, who were the only ones left in the locker room.

 

“Yep,” Hanamaki said, tossing Iwaizumi a salute. “See you tomorrow.”

 

“Sweet dreams, Oikawa,” Matsukawa added with a wink. It was all Oikawa could do not to punch him. Before Iwaizumi could ask, Oikawa all but dragged him out of the locker room.

 

They walked in silence for a couple blocks before Iwaizumi finally spoke. “Hey, you sure you’re feeling OK? You really do look a little sick.” There was a concerned look on his face—a look that was reserved almost exclusively for Oikawa.

 

“Yeah, I think so,” he responded, knowing that denying it would only make Iwaizumi even more suspicious. “Now that I think about it, maybe I am feeling a little sick.” He stared down at the pavement, and Iwaizumi nudged his shoulder slightly.

 

“Promise me that you’ll get some sleep tonight,” he said quietly. “I’ve woken up the past few nights to see your light still on. You can’t expect to perform well if you’re not sleeping.”

 

“Aw, waking up to check on me, Iwa-chan? How sweet,” he teased, ducking as Iwaizumi swatted at him.

 

“Like I would ever do that,” he said grumpily, though he seemed a little relieved that Oikawa appeared to be back to his usual annoying self.

 

They stopped in front of Oikawa’s house, which was right next to Iwaizumi’s. Iwaizumi shrugged off Oikawa’s bag and handed it to him. ‘Such a gentleman,” Oikawa cooed. “I guess cavemen can be taught chivalry, even if they don’t understand it.”

 

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow, stupid,” he said, walking away.

 

“Bye bye, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa called after him. Iwaizumi just held up a hand, not bothering to turn around.

 

Oikawa let out a sigh as he unlocked his door. He really, really hoped that he would be able to forget about all of this by tomorrow. Iwaizumi might have let his strange behavior pass today, but he knew that he would start to dig for answers if he wasn’t back to normal by the next morning.

 

Tossing his bag on his bed, he started to think about the website again. In spite of his initial horror, he found himself a little curious. Had that particular story been the only one on the site? How many of his fan girls were involved? And were they the only ones who wrote and read the stories.

 

He sat down at his desk, trying to focus on his homework, but his mind kept drifting back to the website. Finally he slammed his textbook shut and grabbed his laptop. Typing in the URL, which he had happened to notice on Hanamaki’s phone, he pulled up the site.

 

It took a minute for it to load, but when it did, Oikawa was greeted by a large photo of him and Iwaizumi. It had been taken during one of their games. Oikawa had probably just scored a point, because Iwaizumi was ruffling his hair and they both sported huge grins. It was a surprisingly intimate moment. Oikawa hadn’t really thought too much about moments like that, but it had been times like those that he had felt like he and Iwaizumi were the only ones on the court. He couldn’t help but smile as the memories came back to him.

 

Pulling himself out of his thoughts, he started to look through the site. There was an entire gallery of photos, some of them individual shots, but most of them were pictures of the two of them together. Oikawa decided that he would download some of them later. As much as he teased the other boy about his looks, Iwaizumi was quite photogenic. Not nearly as photogenic as Oikawa, but then, who was?

 

As he finished going through the gallery, he began to think that maybe the site wasn’t as bad as he had imagined it would be. He quickly realized that he had discovered the tamer side of the site, though. He clicked on a tab labeled ‘Works,’ and was faced with a number of links, each of which had a short summary under them. He felt his face heat up as he scrolled through them. When he got to the bottom of the page, he realized that was only the first page. There were nearly 30 pages total, and there were ten stories to a page.

 

He gaped at the numbers. Nearly 300 stories had been written about him and Iwaizumi. He went back to the top of the page and where he found a filter that let him sort through the stories by date, comments, or likes. He clicked on the date, sorting them from oldest to newest. The oldest one had been written when they were first years, which meant that the site was at least two years old.

 

How had he never heard about this before? He had prided himself on knowing nearly everything about everyone at his school. This had obviously been a closely guarded secret. He could see why. He was never going to be able to face the girls at school again, knowing that some of them were writing … this. Whatever ‘this’ was.

 

Swallowing hard, he went back to the main menu and clicked on the tab labeled ‘Art,’ already guessing what he would find there. He wasn’t disappointed. As soon as the page loaded, he clapped a hand over his eyes.

 

“Oh my god,” he whispered. He had only seen a glimpse of the first few images, but the very first one had been nude. Very nude. Not to mention anatomically correct, though he wasn’t sure if it had been drawn to scale.

 

Letting out a squeak at that thought, he immediately clicked on the back arrow. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to think about it. Though if he were to think about it, he was sure that between the two of them, he would be—

 

“Nope!” he yelped, slamming his laptop shut. “Not going to think about it.” He clawed through his desk draw, pulling out is ear buds and practically embedding them in his ears. Turning on his music, he did his best to drown out the impure thoughts that had been forced into his brain.

 

He was going to kill Makki.

 

***

 

That marked the beginning of a very long and turbulent week. Hanamaki and Matsukawa had quickly picked up on the fact that he had seen more than just the story on Makki’s phone, and tormented him endlessly with suggestive poses and innuendos. Oikawa was convinced that his skin would be permanently flushed for the rest of his life. The heat on his skin felt like a constant sunburn that no amount of aloe could ever cure.

 

Even worse than that was his fan club.

 

Oikawa hadn’t thought that anything could be worse than Makki and Mattsun. The meme team, as they liked to call themselves, might as well have crawled straight out of hell with the intent of becoming his personal demons. Even so, they didn’t let him forget that they had only distributed the material that had ruined his life. The creators were still at large, and he couldn’t squelch their behavior with the threat of extra laps.

 

He was suddenly painfully aware of his every interaction with Iwaizumi—during class, in the hallways, at practice, etc.—as there were always at least a few girls present. Any conversation, insult, or slap on the back could become material for a new story. Oikawa started to imagine all the possibilities, which made it infinitely worse. Especially when Iwaizumi smacked him. That brought on a whooooole new level of fantasies, which most definitely were not his own fantasies. He hadn’t started to jerk off to thoughts of Iwaizumi manhandling him. That wasn’t a thing.

 

He was pulled out of the middle of one of those not-fantasies towards the end of practice on Friday. He practically jumped out of his skin when he felt Iwaizumi’s fingers around his wrist, and let out a yelp that was more like a gasp that most certainly didn’t sound a little bit like a moan. Well, maybe a teeny bit, but Iwaizumi’s grip hurt!

 

“Iwa-chan, can’t you just try to talk to me like a normal person,” he complained. “You’re such a brute.”

 

“I’ve been yelling at you for the past five minutes, Trashykawa.” Iwaizumi gave him an irritated look. “Would it kill you to pay attention? You almost got hit by one of Kyoutani’s serves.”

 

“He was probably trying to do it on purpose,” Oikawa sulked, trying to distract Iwaizumi from the fact that he hadn’t been paying attention at all. He glared at Iwaizumi when the other boy let out a small laugh.

 

“Well, you’re probably not wrong,” he said with a wry grin, “but you would have deserved it this time. Seriously, what’s wrong with you? You’ve been like this all week.” He let out a sigh when Oikawa didn’t answer. “You’re sick, aren’t you?”

 

“I don’t get sick, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa sniffed. “Germs are for gross people like you.” That earned him a punch in the arm.

 

“Bullshit. If germs are for gross people, then you’re practically trash. Remember that disgusting stomach virus you got over the summer? Because I do.”

 

“I’m pretty sure that was you, Iwa-chan.”

 

“Nope. I have a picture of your nasty face from that one time that you made me come over.”

 

“What?!” Oikawa shrieked. “You took a picture of me during one of my most vulnerable moments? What kind of monster are you?”

 

“It was payback,” Iwaizumi deadpanned. “You spammed me with texts until I had to turn off my phone. The only reason I came to visit you was because the threats I sent via text weren’t enough to make you stop.”

 

“I had to make sure you weren’t lonely. Iwa-chan would die without me.”

 

“I’m pretty sure that one day that I was able to turn my phone off was the best day of my life. I would have left it off it your mom hadn’t asked my mom to ask me to turn it back on.” He shook his head. “I feel sorry for your mom. You probably whined to her the entire time.”

 

“Did not!” Oikawa protested. “I’m the most mature person I know. And my mom loves me.”

 

“Then you’re the only person you know,” was Iwaizumi’s reply. “And your mom is a saint for putting up with you. It’s not her fault that she gave birth to the ant-Christ.” Before Oikawa could say anything, he held up a hand. “But seriously, go to a doctor already. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

 

“But Iwa-chan, I hate doctors,” Oikawa complained loudly. Loudly enough that the rest of the team heard.

 

“I bet you’d like Iwaizumi to play doctor with you,” Mattsun yelled from across the court. Both Oikawa and Iwaizumi sent him a death glare. He just grinned and waved.

 

Iwaizumi, obviously well past the end of his patience, let out a frustrated noise. “If you don’t see a doctor by the end of tomorrow, I’m telling your sister,” he threatened, smiling slightly at the terrified look that crossed Oikawa’s face.

 

“Please don’t tell nee-chan,” Oikawa begged. “She’ll make me eat gross smoothies and soup until a really do get sick.” Iwaizumi laughed.

 

“It would serve you right. And your sister is a great cook.” Oikawa only groaned, hiding his head in his hands. He loved his sister, but she was insufferable when he was sick. The last time he had been sick, she had stayed at their house for nearly two weeks and had kept Oikawa confined to his room nearly the entire time. He knew she had also sent Iwaizumi photos throughout the entire ordeal, which was probably where Iwaizumi had gotten the photo that he claimed to have stored on his phone.

 

“Alright, fine. But only if I still feel sick tomorrow, which I won’t.”

 

“I’ll be the decider of that. Now c’mon. I’m taking you home.”

 

“But Iwa-chan, practice isn’t over yet.” Oikawa tried to fight back as Iwaizumi began to drag him to the locker room. When Iwaizumi finally scooped him up and threw him over his shoulder, he began to beat against his back. “Iwa-chan, you savage. This isn’t good for my delicate health. Put me down!” Oikawa yelled the last part into Iwaizumi’s ear, and Iwaizumi’s only response was to drop him on the locker room floor.

 

“Change,” he said. “And I mean that literally and figuratively. I think you made me go deaf,” he said, rubbing his ear.

 

They both changed quickly, and Oikawa couldn’t help but notice Iwaizumi watching him out of the corner of his eye.

 

“I know you think I’m beautiful, Iwa-chan, but it’s rude to stare,” Oikawa chastised, trying hard to ignore the fact that he didn’t actually mind Iwaizumi looking at him while he changed.

 

Iwaizumi flicked Oikawa’s forehead. “I’m just making sure that you don’t try to escape, dumbass. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

 

Oikawa let out a ‘Hmph’ as they exited the locker room. Iwaizumi tugged Oikawa along as he explained to the coach why they were leaving early. Oikawa put on his best ‘Save me’ look, but the coach, as usual, deferred to Iwaizumi’s judgment.”  


“Don’t come back until you’re better,” he said. “I don’t want you getting the entire team sick.” Iwaizumi promised that he would handle the issue—the issue being Oikawa.

 

“No one loves me,” Oikawa mumbled as they left the gym.

 

“Probably not,” Iwaizumi agreed. “But we tolerate you enough that we want you to get better.”

 

They exchanged banter the rest of the way, Oikawa doing it mechanically as he recapped the week. He was actually grateful that Iwaizumi thought he was sick. It was better than the alternative, which would be an interrogation until Oikawa caved and finally told Iwaizumi the entire story. Well, most of the entire story. He would leave out the parts where he had imagined himself with Iwaizumi. That was hardly relevant information, and he really didn’t want to lose his best friend just because he’d had a few (too many) thoughts about him.

 

“Do you want me to come in?” Iwaizumi asked as they stood outside Oikawa’s door.

 

“That’s OK. Wouldn’t want to get you sick, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa sang.

 

“Alright,” Iwaizumi said, hesitation and concern written across his features. It wasn’t often that Oikawa passed up an opportunity for the two of them to hang out together. “But I’m serious about the doctor. Go tomorrow regardless of how you feel.” He ruffled Oikawa’s hair. “See you tomorrow?”

 

“I guess,” Oikawa grumbled, jamming the key in the lock as Iwaizumi walked away.

 

After dumping his things on the floor, he laid down on his bed when he got to his room, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully as he tossed a volleyball in the air. This wasn’t getting better. Nothing that he had tried so far had helped.

 

Throwing the ball into his clothes hamper, he decided that it was time to go to the source. He unlocked his phone and dialed Makki’s number.

 

“You,” he hissed, as soon as Makki answered.

 

“Oikawa?” he said. “Wait, don’t say anything. One sec.” He heard a shuffling noise before Hanamaki yelled, “Issei, it’s Oikawa!”

 

“About time,” Matsukawa yelled back from what sounded like a short distance away. There were footsteps, then Matsukawa spoke again. “Really Oikawa, it’s rude to have kept us waiting.”

 

“We expected you at least a day ago,” Makki added.

 

“What are you talking about,” Oikawa asked irritably. “I saw you both at practice today.”

 

“Oh, but would you have really talked about this at practice?” he asked loftily.

 

Oikawa paused. “Wait, what are you talking about?”

 

“I think you know exactly what we’re talking about,” Mattsun said.

 

The website. Of course. Of course they knew. They had probably known from the start how it would affect Oikawa.

 

“We know you’ve been thinking about it,” Hanamaki added, as if reading his thoughts, when Oikawa didn’t say anything.

 

“Why did you have to show that to me?” Oikawa finally cried, nearly at the end of his wits. “You knew exactly what would happen,” he accused, “and now I can’t be anywhere near Iwa-chan without thinking about it. The whole team can’t be anywhere near him without thinking about it!”

 

He heard someone say something that sounded suspiciously like ‘collateral damage,’ before Makki spoke up. “You literally asked for it, so don’t blame us.”

 

“How was I supposed to know? You didn’t tell me what it was!”

 

“Even if we had, you would have asked to have seen it anyway.”

 

“And would have come up with some sort of excuse why you had to see it.”

 

“Plus we know that you’ve looked at it since then. We had nothing to do with that.”

 

Oikawa’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Now I can’t stop thinking about it,” he whispered, more to himself than anyone else.

 

“Have you considered the possibility that you might be a little gay for Iwaizumi?” Mattsun asked after a moment.

 

Oikawa straightened up immediately. “Absolutely not,” he said, his voice flat.

 

“But maybe—”

 

“Nope.”

 

“Oika—”

 

“Theory rejected. Come up with something better.”

 

He heard one of them sigh. “You should read through the website some more.”

 

“What? Why would I do that?” Frankly, that sounded like the last thing he should be doing.

 

“Look, all I’m saying is that you should just get it out of your system,” he said. “If you’re really not gay for Iwaizumi, then what could it hurt?”

 

The words echoed through his head as he said goodbye and hung up.

 

Avoiding the issue hadn’t helped, so maybe he should just face it head on. He knew he wasn’t gay for Iwaizumi, so it couldn’t hurt if he read through a few of the stories, just to remind himself of that fact.

 

He picked up his laptop from where it sat beside his bed, typing in the password before pulling up the website again. He went back to the stories, since he couldn’t bring himself to look at the art. Not yet, at least. _No, not ever,_ he thought. That wasn’t necessary for the recovery process.

 

He picked a few of the stories at random, completely ignoring the ratings and tags.

 

The first one was pure fluff. It was short and just about Iwaizumi and Oikawa’s day at a park. Minus the hugs and ‘I love yous,’ and wasn’t necessarily something that they wouldn’t do on a lazy Saturday, so Oikawa was OK with it.

 

The next one was practically hardcore porn, but it was so bad that Oikawa found himself laughing, and only felt a little disturbed. It almost felt as though the author had written a terrible porn scene with faceless characters, and had then inserted Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s names. And while he didn’t know much about gay sex, he could say with almost certainty that it didn’t work _that_ way.

 

The last one was the one that kept him from reading any other stories. Whoever the author was, she had obviously watched Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s interactions closely. Either that or she was just really good at guessing.

 

It was a story about them confessing to each other, and it ended in a graphic sex scene that turned Oikawa on more than he wanted to admit. When he finished, he noticed a tightness in his pants that definitely hadn’t been there when he had first started reading. He groaned, letting his head fall against the desk.

 

He thunked his head against the surface several times, hoping to beat some sense into himself since Iwaizumi wasn’t there to do it for him. That only made him think of the other things that Iwaizumi wasn’t there to do for him, so he finally stopped, scrubbing his hand against his face.

 

OK, so it was possible that he was a little bit gay. It was something that he had wondered about in the past when he found himself admiring the physiques of a few of the volleyball players on opposing teams. He hadn’t thought too much about it, though, because he had to channel 100% of his focus into the games. Having a sexuality crisis while on the court in the middle of a game wasn’t exactly conducive to focus.

 

He may or may not have watched one or two gay porn videos in the past, too. But he had written that off as curiosity.

 

Giving up on the stories for now, he navigated to the site’s forum, which he hadn’t bothered to visit the last time he’d been on the site. There were hundreds of threads, so he only looked at the ones that were labeled ‘Hot.’

 

The first was full of story prompts, and Oikawa quickly grew bored with that, though he did find himself snickering at one or two. The thought of getting Iwaizumi to wear a skirt was amusing, and Oikawa absently wondered if he could get Makki and Mattsun to help him make it happen. Given all the blackmail they had on Oikawa, they had to have at least a couple of things that they could use as leverage against Iwaizumi. Besides, they owed him.

 

The second one was an argument over who would top. It was apparently a recurring thread, because there were links everywhere referencing old comments. He decided that he really didn’t want to know people’s reasons for thinking that he was a top or a bottom, so he quickly left that one.

 

He found the next one a little more interesting. It was an old one, dating back a couple of years, and it had thousands of comments that were still ongoing. It was simply titled “Facts,” and it was littered with details about Oikawa and Iwaizumi. Not all of them were true, and many of those had been marked as ‘Speculative.’ They had gotten quite a few things right, but most of the ones he saw were very basic, like Iwaizumi’s love for tofu, that Oikawa occasionally wore reading glasses, the fact that the two of them had been friends since they were kids, etc.

 

He frowned when he saw one that cited his obsession with Star Trek. He definitely hadn’t wanted anyone to know about that. His frown deepened when he saw a comment that claimed Oikawa’s phone password was Iwaizumi’s birthday. How did everyone seem to know that? He grabbed his phone and immediately reset the password.

 

There. Problem solved.

 

One of the most recent comments had been made by a user who claimed that she could write Oikawa and Iwaizumi better than anyone else on the site. That, of course, had sparked a giant debate as every. single. user thought that they knew Oikawa and Iwaizumi best.

 

He clicked on the usernames of a few people who had been vehemently arguing their own case. A couple of them were obviously bluffing, or were just plain delusional, because their characterizations of Oikawa and Iwaizumi were so far off that their stories were painful to read.

 

The others were a little more on point. It was like reading a very basic overview of his and Iwaizumi’s personalities. It matched what Oikawa would have figured people had thought of them. Superficial. That was the word that he would use to describe it.

 

The author of the original comment might have actually been right to claim that she could write them better than the others. Going through her stories, he realized that she had been the one who had written the confession story that he had read earlier. She had several other works, one of which she was in the middle of writing.

 

He felt a spark of jealousy as he began to read through the newest one. He could write better than that. The thought surprised him as soon as it crossed his mind, but his competitive streak kept him from questioning it. He could write them better. He knew Iwaizumi better than anyone else, so if anybody could write a story about him and Iwaizumi, it would be Oikawa.

 

Refusing to allow himself to think better of it, he clicked on the ‘Join’ button at the top of the site. He was immediately prompted to choose a username and password, so he typed in ‘grandking.’

 

Taken.

 

How was that one taken? He sighed, racking his brain for another. This time he typed in ‘iloveoikawa.’

 

Taken.

 

Next he tried ‘i<3oikawa.’

 

This time he got an error message informing him that special characters were not allowed.

 

After that he tried ‘oikawaisgreat.’

 

Taken.

 

Finally he tried ‘iloveiwachan.’

 

That one was available, and he grinned as he added his password.

 

Once he finished authorizing his account, he was sent an auto-message from one of the moderators, whose username was ‘mrsiwaizumihajime.’ It contained an overview of the site, included several links to help articles that explained how to submit art, stories, and photos, and then listed the site rules, the very first of which was ‘The first rule of the fan site is: You do not talk about the fan site.’ The second rule was a repeat of the first, which Oikawa felt was a little redundant, but they seemed intent on keeping the site a secret, so he guessed that it made sense.

 

After that there were rules of conduct, which prohibited hate speech and slurs, forbade bullying, and banned the use of tasteless profanity. How they determined the difference between tasteful and tasteless, Oikawa had no idea.

 

Next there were rules about the stories themselves. Original characters had been completely banned from being in relationships with Oikawa or Iwaizumi, unless the relationships were temporary and the OCs were instrumental in getting them together.

 

That one didn’t seem to be a very popular one, because there was a side note that mentioned that the rule was currently being discussed in the forum, and that if users had any problems with the rule, they should comment in that thread.

 

Unless they were on the men’s volleyball team, the names of actual people could not be posted anywhere on the site, nor could they be depicted in art. Non-volleyball players could be in the pictures listed in the image gallery, but the moderators had the right to remove images if they felt that the focal point of the image was not Oikawa or Iwaizumi.

 

Side pairings were allowed and were encouraged, but the stories that included them had to be tagged appropriately. The moderators were currently discussing whether or not to let stories feature non-Oikawa/Iwaizumi pairings as the main pairings, but at the moment, that was prohibited. If users really wanted to, they could post those stories in the thread that had been created for that purpose.

 

The rest of the rules were the basic rules that any site might have, and he closed out of the message as soon as he reached the bottom. It all seemed simple enough, which meant that the only task that he was left with was to actually write his story.

 

He contemplated for several minutes, trying to decide the direction he would take.

 

Sex, obviously, was out of the question. Iwa-chan was a pure, innocent, extremely angry cinnamon roll, and Oikawa felt guilty for even having sexual thoughts about him. He felt like he was somehow violating his best friend. Iwaizumi had only dated one or two girls—and that had been back and middle school. Unless he had lied to Oikawa about it, he hadn’t kissed anyone, either. Oikawa, while still a virgin, felt like a slut compared to Iwaizumi, though he’d never admit it to him.

 

With that in mind, there was no way he could ever write a sex scene between him and Iwaizumi. He’d never be able to look his friend in the eye again. He was also pretty sure that it would guarantee him a one-way ticket to hell.

 

He tried to think of other things to write about, which was more difficult than he had anticipated. The entire site seemed to be a shrine to sex scenes. He finally settled on writing his and Iwaizumi’s childhood. Based on what he had scene in the forum, it wasn’t a subject that many, if any, authors had chosen to write about. Plus Oikawa thought that it would help him reevaluate his relationship with Iwaizumi and remind him that they were, indeed, just friends.

 

With that in mind, he opened up a blank Word document, staring at it for several moments as he tried to decide where to begin. As he went through several different scenarios, he decided that he didn’t want to write it from his own perspective. Sure, that would be the easy way to do it. He had a pretty good memory and remembered his childhood well enough, but … some part of him wondered what it must have been like for Iwaizumi.

 

If he wrote from his own point of view, he knew that it would become a story about Oikawa. Very few of the stories that he had seen had accurately portrayed Iwaizumi’s personality. There was so much more to his ace than they had managed to capture, so Oikawa decided that he was going to show them just how amazing Iwaizumi was.

 

Plus he was almost certain that Iwaizumi had enjoyed their childhood just as much as Oikawa had. So Iwaizumi was going to have a very happy childhood in which he was happy to have Oikawa as his childhood friend. It wasn’t fiction; that was a fact of life. One that Iwaizumi had been denying since day one. His story would be like a sacrament for all the lies that Iwaizumi had been telling himself.

 

Iwaizumi ought to appreciate him more. He was such a good and thoughtful friend.

 

That thought was the catalyst he had needed to get started. He positioned his fingers on the keyboard and began to type.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been meaning to write this one for awhile. It probably won't be updated super often, since I'm focusing on my omegaverse fic right now, but I'll work on it whenever I have writer's block, which means it'll probably be updated at least every two weeks or so. If you notice any errors, please let me know! Thanks for reading :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Ace in the Hole**

Chapter 1

Author: iloveiwachan

  

Hajime had been six when the moving van had arrived at the house next to his. He hadn’t known it at the time—though it could be argued that he had never really known anything at all due to his undiagnosed caveman brain—but it would become the most important day in his life. It was the day that he first met Oikawa Tooru.

 

He wandered over curiously, dropping his bug net and jar full of nasty insects. Getting out of the van was a little boy approximately his own age. His jaw dropped as he stared at him. In spite of what must have been a very long drive, the boy looked flawless. His silky brown hair was styled in perfect waves and his eyes were like milky chocolate.

 

Hajime didn’t even like chocolate, because he was a bitter person who didn’t like anything sweet, but seeing Tooru’s eyes made him want to hunt down every chocolate bar in the world. He didn’t want to eat Tooru’s eyes, but their beauty suddenly made chocolate appealing.

 

He inched closer to the moving van, but stopped and hid behind a tree before he got too close. What if the other boy saw him? What if he was so stunned by Hajime’s ugliness that he jumped back in the van and went back to wherever he’d come from? He didn’t want that to happen. Even if it meant that he had to watch Tooru from afar, he didn’t want to upset the brunet, whose perfect porcelain skin might shatter under Hajime’s perpetually angry eyes.

 

Just as he was thinking this, Tooru looked across the yard, straight at the tree that Hajime was standing behind. Like a delicate fawn moving gently through a field of dew, Tooru slowly moved closer. He had astutely noticed that someone was behind the tree, even though he couldn’t have possibly seen Hajime. It was like he had extraterrestrial senses.

 

Hajime was stunned by the other boy’s bravery as he approached. How could such a perfect and benevolent creature even consider coming near him. Surely every person, and alien, in the universe wanted to be Tooru’s friend, and yet here he was, extending a pale and delicate hand of friendship toward a boy who couldn’t possibly deserve his attention.

 

“It’s alright,” Tooru said softly, his voice like that of an angel. “You can come out. I won’t run away screaming. I promise.”

 

A little worried, though completely unable to resist the boy, Hajime moved his big caveman feet and walked out from behind the tree. He stared at the ground, worried that his gorgon-like gaze would turn Tooru into a perfect but lifeless statue. He couldn’t stand the possibility of depriving the world of the boy who was like a young god.

 

“I know you’re gross and don’t have any friends, but out of the kindness of my loving heart, I will be your friend,” Tooru said. Hajime was stunned. Someone would actually be friends with him. Tears started to run down his grubby cheeks as he realized that he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life alone. This was the happiest day of his life.

 

“My name is Oikawa Tooru,” the boy said slowly, doing his best to ensure that Hajime’s small brain would comprehend his words, “but you can call me Tooru, since I will be your best and only friend. Though I won’t be your best friend because I’m your only friend. I’ll be your best friend because I am the best.”

 

Hajime cried even harder, trying to stop his own tears because he, unlike Tooru, had the ugliest crying face in the world. “I’m Iwaizumi Hajime,” he said. His voice was like grinding stones, and was so harsh that he was sure that it would damage Tooru’s excellent hearing. But little did he know was that while Tooru appeared fragile and breakable, the other boy was also strong and resilient. He was a living paradox.

 

“I know,” he said softly. And as those gentle eyes stared into his own abyss-like eyes, he realized that Tooru saw and knew everything that could possibly be known about Hajime—though that wasn’t very much at all. But if it had been a lot, Tooru would have still known it all.

 

He reached out to clasp Hajime’s hand. He had such strength that he didn’t even gag when he touched Hajime’s nasty fingers, which were permanently coated in dirt since he spent all of his time catching bugs, which flew away from him because even they didn’t want to be friends with him.

 

“Shall we catch bugs together?” he asked.

 

“What? But won’t you get dirty?” Hajime asked, snot running down his face. He almost didn’t dare wipe it off, since Tooru’s pure hands had touched his own, and he didn’t want to sully what little purity might still remain (what he didn’t know was that there wasn’t any on him, since Tooru’s pureness couldn’t be transferred).

 

Being the nasty creature he was, though, he wiped it away anyway, rubbing his hand on his shirt. It didn’t help at all, because his shirt was just as dirty as the rest of him. In spite of Tooru’s amazing understanding, he wasn’t entirely sure how someone as clean as Hajime’s mother had ended up with such a dirty son.

 

“I’ll be very careful,” Tooru said. “I won’t let one speck of dirt touch me. He held out his hands, which, in spite of having touched Hajime’s own, were perfectly clean. Hajime stared at him in awe.

 

“I’ll let you use my net,” he promised. “And I’ll be really nice about it and won’t hit you over the head with it like I’d do to anyone else who tries to touch it. I won’t even call you stupid if you can’t catch any bugs.” Since Tooru’s kindness had moved him, he added, very honestly, “I bet you’ll be the best bug catcher ever.”

 

“Even if you did all of those things, I’d still be friends with you,” Tooru promised,” because that’s how nice I am. Besides, nothing makes me cry.”

 

And so a beautiful friendship began. It was beautiful because Oikawa was beautiful. Iwaizumi’s looks didn’t have anything to do with it.

 

***

 

It was around 3 AM when Oikawa finally clicked ‘Post’ After having glanced through his story a couple of times, he was satisfied with the result.

 

He felt like the story’s name fit Iwaizumi perfectly. And Iwaizumi was his ace, which made it all the better.

 

Iwaizumi’s perception of Oikawa might have been exaggerated a tiny bit, but not by much. And OK, maybe Iwaizumi had hit him over the head with a bug net when Oikawa had tried to play with him, but those little details weren’t important. He considered going back in and toning it down a little, but he’d been too tired to change anything.

 

Yawning, he fell into bed. He couldn’t wait to see how people responded. He fell asleep as he imagined all the likes and compliments he would get when he checked on it tomorrow.

 

***

 

Oikawa had been having a wonderful dream. Ushiwaka and Tobio-chan had been on the same team, but Oikawa, single handedly, had beaten them both. As the crowd cheered, Oikawa waited for the two to bow before him. They were just about to walk up to him—

 

A shock of cold went through Oikawa’s entire body, harshly jerking him out of his dream. He gasped, floundering around like a fish out of water as he tried to figure out what was going on. Everything was a blur for a few moments as his body tried to adjust. As he looked around, his brain was finally able to recognize the source of his misery.

 

Iwaizumi stood over him, a small and notably empty pitcher in his hands. It’s contents, Oikawa realized, had been the cause of his rude awakening. He jumped out of bed, trying to get away from the ice chips as quickly as possible.

 

“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa shrieked. “What the hell?” Iwaizumi doubled over laughing as he watched the scene.

 

“Your face,” he gasped. “That was priceless. I should have taken a picture.”

 

“I—” Oikawa opened and closed his mouth like a fish, which only made Iwaizumi laugh harder. His brain, still half asleep, was still having trouble comprehending what had happened. He finally settled for wailing “Whyyyyyy?”

 

“Because I woke up before you for the first time ever,” he said as he tried to contain his laughter. Staring at Oikawa, Iwaizumi just shook his head and grinned. “Get dressed, stupid. The clinic is already open. God knows how long the wait time is now.”

 

“Clinic?” Oikawa asked, confused. It took a minute, but his face went pale as he realized what Iwaizumi was referring to. “No,” he gasped. “No, don’t make me go. I’ll do anything,” he pleaded, falling to his knees. “Please, Iwa-chan.”

 

Iwaizumi just shook his head. “Nope. I told you that you were going to the doctor today. Did you actually think that I was joking?”

 

“I was hoping you’d develop a conscience and realize that making your amazing friend miserable is morally wrong.”

 

“It’s that or I text your sister,” he said, setting down the pitcher as he fished his phone out of his pocket. “You know she’ll make you go to the doctor anyway, so you might as well come willingly now.” He held his phone in front of him and started to tap at the screen.

 

“You monster. You know I hate doctors!” He hugged himself and as he did he remembered that he was half naked, having gone to bed in nothing but his boxers. On instinct, he threw his hands over his chest and squeaked, “Iwa-chan.”

 

Lowering his phone, Iwaizumi gave him an unimpressed look. “Problem?” he asked in a flat voice.

 

“I feel so violated,” Oikawa whispered dramatically.

 

“Yeah right,” Iwaizumi said sarcastically. “You’ve told me way to much about the shit you’ve done with your girlfriends. More than I ever wanted to know. If anyone should feel violated, it would be me. Besides,” he said, casting a glance over his shoulder as he grabbed the pitcher and exited the room, “I don’t see anything worth being interested in.”

 

He shut the door just in time to miss being hit by the pillow Oikawa threw. Oikawa groaned groggily and sank back down on his bed. He shot up as soon as he made contact.

 

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa yelled, “get back here and clean this up!” He could hear Iwaizumi’s laugh in the hallway, but it got quieter as Iwaizumi walked in the opposite direction. Oikawa looked back and forth between his bed and closet, completely at a loss for what to do next. His brain short circuited, and he settled for curling up in a ball on the floor. It was going to be one of those days.

 

***

 

And so Oikawa got to spend an hour of his Saturday sitting in a waiting room only to spend an additional ten minutes being lectured by a doctor on the importance getting a good night’s sleep.

 

He slunk back into the waiting room, where Iwaizumi was scrolling through his phone. He glanced up as Oikawa approached.

 

“How’d it go? What did they say?”

 

“Just that I needed to sleep more,” Oikawa mumbled, refusing to look at Iwaizumi’s face.

 

“I knew it,” Iwaizumi groaned. “How many times have I told you that, dumbass? You’ve got to get a full eight hours.” His language earned him a glare from a woman who was sitting nearby with her child. Iwaizumi winced, muttering an apology as he grabbed Oikawa’s wrist and pulled him out of the clinic.

 

Oikawa yawned as they stepped outside, blinking at the harsh sunlight. “Corrupting the innocent youth, Iwa-chan,” he said as he rubbed at his eyes. “You’re such an awful person.”

 

“They’re going to learn eventually. What’s a few years early? I’m pretty sure the kid was asleep, anyway.” He glanced over at Oikawa. “I hope you washed your hands. Otherwise you’ve probably just given yourself an eye infection.”

 

Oikawa made a dismayed noise and stared down at his hands. “If I do, it’ll be all your fault for dragging me to the doctor’s office. Unnecessarily, I might add.”

 

Iwaizumi let out a snort, but didn’t answer. They walked in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again.

 

“So,” Iwaizumi said, “I was thinking we could go get ice cream.” Oikawa’s face lit up.

 

“Iwa-chan never wants ice cream,” he said. He pressed a hand against Iwaizumi’s forehead. “Are you sure you aren’t getting sick? Because we could always go back to the clinic,” he teased. “I think the wait was up to two hours when we left.”

 

Iwaizumi swatted his hand away. “I take it back,” he grumbled. “And I should have made you sit in the waiting room alone.” He crossed his arms as a pout, not wholly unlike Oikawa’s own, settled on his face. It looked adorable on him.

 

“Nope, no take backsies, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa sang. He grabbed his friend’s hands. “And Iwa-chan is paying since he made me wake up early. Even beautiful people need beauty sleep,” he said. He tilted his head to the side playfully. “Not that you would understand. No amount of sleep would make Iwa-chan’s ugly face beautiful!”

 

Iwaizumi punched him in the arm, ignoring Oikawa’s cries of protest. ‘I don’t know why I put up with you. You are the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever had the misfortune of dealing with.” He started to wrestle his hand away from Oikawa, who only tightened his grip. “Let go. Your hands feel gross,” he griped.

 

Oikawa let out a gasp. “You take that back! My hands are like silk,” he said, flashing Iwaizumi a victorious grin when the other boy finally gave up on trying to extricate his hand. “And besides,” he added, addressing Iwaizumi’s initial complaint, “you would be bored without me. Boring Iwa-chan is such a bore without Oikawa-san.”

 

Iwaizumi let out a long-suffering sigh. “I’ve dealt with toddlers who were better behaved than you are,” he muttered.

 

Oikawa didn’t justify that with a response. Instead he swung their hands as they walked along, chanting “Ice cream, ice cream.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Iwaizumi smile a little, not half as irritated as he pretended to be.

 

He felt, and probably looked, like a little kid. He knew that Iwaizumi was trying to make up for forcing him to go to the doctor. He was like a parent trying to get back in their child’s good graces after having made them do something that they really didn’t want to do. Oikawa decided that he was going to capitalize on the guilt as much as Iwaizumi would let him.

 

When they arrived, Oikawa took his time picking out what he wanted, sampling nearly half the flavors before settling on cotton candy and rainbow. He picked three toppings, which the woman serving them layered heavily. She was clearly amused by Oikawa’s behavior.

 

“You two are so cute,” she cooed as Iwaizumi pulled out his wallet. “How long have you been together?”

 

Iwaizumi froze as a blush dusted his cheeks. “We’re … we’re not together,” he sputtered, tripping over his words as he fumbled with his money.

 

“Of course not,” she said with a wink. Oikawa turned a deep shade of red, but thanked her for the ice cream.

 

Iwaizumi was still blushing as they exited the shop. Fighting his obvious embarrassment, he turned to look at Oikawa’s ice cream, completely avoiding his face. He wrinkled his nose. “That is the most disgusting thing I have ever seen. I can’t believe you put chocolate syrup on it. Are you actually going to eat that?”

 

“Of course! This,” Oikawa said, holding his cone up like it was some sort of prize, “is a work of art.”

 

“It’s a really shitty piece of art, then,” he snorted. “You’re gonna get fat if you keep eating like that.”

 

“Hmph.” Oikawa turned his face. “You’re just jealous of my amazing metabolism and Adonis-like physique. I’m light as a feather.”

 

“I can’t wait until all of this,” he gestured at Oikawa’s cone, “catches up to you. Then your looks will finally match your ego. Overinflated.” Oikawa let out an offended noise, but didn’t answer, settling instead for scrutinizing Iwaizumi’s choice of ice cream.

 

“Vanilla,” he sniffed as he peered at Iwaizumi’s bowl. “Just like Iwa-chan’s sex life.”

 

“Like you would know,” he said, rolling his eyes.

 

“Hm? What’s this?” he said, cocking his head to the side. “Has someone deflowered my Iwa-chan?” he asked. He suddenly stopped in his tracks. Iwaizumi turned around, a look of exasperation on his face. Oikawa gave him a serious look. “Iwa-chan,” he said, dropping his voice an octave lower as Iwaizumi’s face grew puzzled, “do I need to avenge your purity?” Iwaizumi’s jaw dropped.

 

“Shut the fuck up,” he said, shoving Oikawa roughly. He immediately switched sides with Oikawa, though, taking the side closest to the road as they started walking again. “As if I would tell you anything about my sex life.”

 

“My god,” Oikawa said with a scandalized gasp, “I could totally see you as a leather daddy.” Iwaizumi let out a groan and dropped his ice cream in the nearest trash bin.

 

“Please don’t ever picture me doing anything remotely sexual.” He shook his head. “That’s just disturbing to think about.”

 

“Too late.” Oikawa let out a moan, burying his face in the hand that wasn’t holding his ice cream. “Now whenever you date someone, I’m going to imagine you both doing super weird, kinky … leather and chain stuff.”

 

“Good thing I won’t be dating anyone any time soon, you weirdo.”

 

Oikawa raised a brow. “Why is that?” he asked with genuine curiosity. While Oikawa was constantly moaning about his love life, Iwaizumi was silent on the subject. He had commented once or twice on girls he had found cute, but he had never expressed a real interest in any of them.

 

“I dunno.” Iwaizumi shrugged. “I…. Volleyball. I guess I’ve been too busy with that to even think about dating anyone. That paired with school—it’s just a lot to deal with,” he said. Oikawa shook his head the entire time. “What?” he asked defensively.

 

“Poor Iwa-chan. Creatures like you weren’t meant to deal with complex concepts like words and arithmetic,” he said sadly. “How will you ever find a mate and continue your pre-historic line? It’ll be a shame for scientists to lose such a rare speci—”

 

He was interrupted as Iwaizumi shoved his hand up, pushing his half-finished ice cream into his face.

 

“Iwa-chan!” he wailed. “Now I’m going to break out.”

 

“Good.”

 

“You’re so mean to me,” Oikawa complained. He glanced down, then realized that he didn’t have any napkins. Iwaizumi had been carrying them, and had subsequently thrown them away with his own ice cream. “Clean it up,” he said, pointing at his own face.

 

“What? You want me to lick it off or something?” Iwaizumi grimaced. “We’re almost home, anyway.” He glanced over at Oikawa just in time to see the brunet making a move towards his shirt. “Oh hell no.” He jumped away just in time to save his shirt, though Oikawa managed to get a streak of the sticky substance on his forearm.

 

Knowing that Oikawa was going to try again, he took off sprinting. Oikawa was hot on his heels, holding his leaking ice cream cone like a relay baton. He chased Iwaizumi the entire way home.

 

***

 

They spent the rest of the day together. Oikawa whined his way into getting Iwaizumi to watch the fourth Star Wars movie with him. That, in spite of Iwaizumi’s protests, somehow turned into them watching the entire original trilogy together. Oikawa quoted most of it from memory.

 

“Y’know, this wouldn’t be half as bad if you would actually let me listen to the movie. I’ve already had to listen to your god-awful voice for half the day.” He massaged his temples. “I’m pretty sure I’m getting a migraine.”

 

“You owe me,” Oikawa said as he mimicked the gestures of the characters on the screen.

 

“Forgive me for actually being concerned about your health. It’s a mistake I’ll never make again.” He shifted away as Oikawa leaned against him. His efforts were unsuccessful, though, as Oikawa only snuggled closer. “You’re too fucking heavy,” he complained.

 

Oikawa shushed him. “Stop interrupting the movie. Some of us want to hear it.”

 

Iwaizumi groaned, but went quiet as Oikawa went back to quoting the movie.

 

 _This is perfect_ , Oikawa thought. Even though the doctor’s office had sucked, it had been a pretty good day. He couldn’t think of anything he’d rather be doing now. He leaned over a little further, resting his head in Iwaizumi’s lap. The other boy let out a sigh, but began carding his hand through Oikawa’s hair after a moment. Oikawa let out a happy noise, his eyes drooping a little. The last thing he saw was the death star exploding as he drifted off to sleep.

 

***

 

“Hey, Oikawa. Wake up.” He felt someone lightly shaking him.

 

“Hm?” Oikawa blinked, lifting his head slightly as he blearily looked around. “Iwa-chan?” The room was almost completely dark save for the last traces of daylight filtering through the blinds. He could feel Iwaizumi’s warmth beneath his cheek, and he laid his head back down in his friend’s lap, unwilling to abandon his comfortable position.

 

Iwaizumi wiggled his leg slightly, causing Oikawa’s head to bounce against his thigh. “Get up already, Stupidkawa. My leg is numb.”

 

Oikawa groaned, but obeyed. He stretched his arms over his head and his back made a satisfied popping sound.

 

“What time is it?” he asked, pulling his phone out of his pocket rather than waiting for Iwaizumi’s answer. He frowned as he looked at his phone. Based on the time, the movie had ended over an hour ago. “Why’d you let me sleep so long?”

 

“The doctor said you need sleep, yeah? I don’t want you screwing up the season for the rest of us just because you can’t keep your eyes open during matches.”

 

“That would never happened,” Oikawa replied, his voice thick with sleep.

 

“Do you wanna stay over tonight?”

 

Oikawa thought for a second. “I promised my parents I’d be home for supper he said,” he said. “They’re mad that I’ve been eating in my room for the past couple of days. Do you want to eat with us, though?”

 

Iwaizumi chuckled. “I promised my parents the same thing. Though I’m actually a good son and eat with them on a regular basis.”

 

“I usually do,” Oikawa protested. “I’ve just had a bunch of homework lately.”

 

“What were you saying earlier when I said that I had been busy with school?” he asked with a wry grin. He stood, rubbing at his leg as he tried to return some feeling to it.

 

“My classes are harder than yours.”

 

“You’re only one class above me. They can’t be that bad.”

 

“If that were the case, wouldn’t we be in the same class?” Oikawa smiled triumphantly when Iwaizumi rolled his eyes. “That’s what I thought.”

 

Get out of here, Crappykawa,” Iwaizumi said, flipping the lights on, then pushing Oikawa toward the door.

 

“Are we doing homework together tomorrow?” Oikawa asked as he put his shoes on.

 

“Only if you actually let me do my homework this time.”

 

“When have I ever not?” Oikawa asked, pretending to be offended.

 

“Every single fucking time we study together.” Iwaizumi flicked him on the forehead. “You work for maybe ten minutes, then you make me play Mario Kart or watch a movie with you.”

 

“I’m pretty sure that’s you, Iwa-chan. I’m a model student. Valedictorian,” he said, flashing a peace sign.

 

Iwaizumi shook his head. “I have no clue how. But tomorrow we’re studying. For real this time.”

 

“Sure, sure. Whatever you say, Iwa-chan.”

 

Iwaizumi shoved him out the door. “Get out of here,” he said, slamming the door behind him.

 

“Goodnight, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa yelled at the top of his lungs. A couple of the neighbors opened their windows. Oikawa just waved at them as he walked over to his house. They returned it with resigned waves of their own. They had accepted Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s antics a long time ago. Oikawa smiled as he thought about just how long it had been.

  

***

 

It wasn’t until Oikawa finished supper that he remembered the story he had posted the night before. He started to get excided as he wondered how many likes and comments he had gotten. He had probably gotten at least 50. Whether they knew it or not, they were all getting an inside peek at his and Iwaizumi’s lives.

 

Both of his parents had work that they needed to do, so he was able to escape to his room after clearing the table. As soon as he got there, he grabbed his laptop and went straight to the fan site.

 

It took him a few minutes to figure out how to get to his story. When he did, though, he was disappointed. Only eight likes? Was no one online on Saturdays? He would have thought that would have been the site’s most popular day, but that couldn’t be the case if he hadn’t gotten more likes.

 

As he started to scroll down to the comments, he wondered if he ought to take the story down. He didn’t even leave a selfie on Facebook if it didn’t get at least a hundred likes in a 12-hour period. How could he be satisfied with only eight likes?

 

Making a face, he started to read through the comments. Maybe those would make him feel a little better. He’d gotten quite a few of those.

 

 

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [5:02 AM]: first!

 

oikawabae [7:34 AM]: omg srsly? do u have 2 do that evry time? ur a aweful mod

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [7:36 AM]: ur just jealous that you werent here first

 

thegrandqueen [8:02 AM]: is it just me or does iwa seem a really ooc? and even though oikawa’s pretty much perfect, i don’t think he’s that perfect. i feel kinda bad for iwa.

 

iwasarms [8:46 AM] ^ i thought so too

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [9:07 AM]: is no one going to comment on the name??? i was gonna give this a 3/10 for an ooc iwaizumi, but i’m adding +2 for the pun/innuendo. i think it’s safe to say that we know who the top will be ;) 5/10!!!

 

iwasarms [9:09 AM]: ^ i don’t get it

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [9:11 AM]: @thegrandmoderator i think u should make it +1 since its not a volleyball pun/innuendo

 

ballsb4brawn [10:20 AM]: wtf is this? and about time oikawa’s a bottom. why has everyone been writing him as a fucking top lately? there’s no way iwaizumi’s a bottom.

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [10:23 AM]: @ballsb4brawn strike 4 for tasteless use of profanity again. were going 2 take away your commenting privileges again if u keep it up

 

thegrandqueen [10:25 AM]: how many strikes does he get? four already seems like too many….

 

settersdoitbetter [10:42 AM]: @thegrandmoderator Shame on you for rating stories. If you’re going to comment, say something encouraging.

 

settersdoitbetter [10:44 AM]: @iloveiwachan Great story! Welcome to the fan site :) I hope that you continue! I can’t wait to see how their friendship develops.

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [11:06 AM]: @mrsiwazumihajime volleyball related or not, i still like it. 5/10!!!!!

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [11:07 AM]: @ballsb4brawn as per rule 37, all top/bottom comments and arguments must be posted in the appropriate forum thread. you can find it at this link.

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [11:09 AM]: @settersdoitbetter i like to think of it as constructive criticism.

 

thatswhatsheset [1:17 PM]: Am I allowed to comment again?

 

iwasarms [1:18 PM] ^ no

 

thegrandqueen [1:30 PM]: no.

 

oikawabae [1:34 PM]: ?????? i thought u where baned

 

kissmyace [2:34 PM]: yes

 

thatswhatsheset [2:49 PM]: @kissmyace <3

 

kissmyace [2:51 PM]: @thatswhatsheset <3

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [3:01 PM]: @thatswhatsheset u have 6 days left. plz dont comment until then or we’ll extend it

 

kissmyace [3:47 PM]: :(

 

iwaoi4ever [4:49 PM]: Maybe this is just an AU where Iwaizumi realizes he’s in love with Oikawa from an early age? @iloveiwachan is that what you were going for? I think it’s a great idea, but you might want to make Oikawa a little less perfect and give Iwaizumi more self confidence.

 

ballsb4brawn [5:07 PM]: iwaizumi’s cooler than that.

 

settersdoitbetter [6:01 PM]: @ballsb4brawn No one is too cool for love.

 

ballsb4brawn [6:05 PM]: @settersdoitbetter that’s stupid

 

ballsb4brawn [6:13 PM]: @settersdoitbetter and what the f*ck do setters do better?

 

settersdoitbetter [6:21PM]: @ballsb4brawn ;)

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [7:11 PM]: @ballsb4brawn subbing * in 4 a vowel is still tasteless profanity. strike 4.5. find another wrd

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [7:16 PM]: @ballsb4brawn no bullying. strike 5.5

 

ballsb4brawn [8:13 PM]: whatever.

 

 

 

Oikawa stared at the comments in dismay. Only a few of the comments had been directed towards his story, and hardly any of them had been positive. Also, 3/10? It had been much better than that! At least an 8/10.

 

He read through the comments again. +2 for the pun/innuendo? What were they talking about? He stared at the title for a moment, then realization dawned on him.

 

Ace in the hole. How had he not caught that? He rested his chin against his desk, staring at the computer. He tried coming up with a new title, but nothing came to mind. What was the point, anyway? He couldn’t keep going with this poor of a response. Eight likes….

 

He read through the comments a third time, still stuck on a few of them. Maybe they weren’t as bad as he’d initially thought. Ooc? What did that even mean? He’d had his doubts about it initially, but maybe it was a compliment. He pulled up a new tab and Googled it.

 

“Oh.” Not a good thing, then. He made a move to click on the trashcan icon, but before he did, a new comment popped up.

 

 

iloveoikawa [9:02 PM]: @iloveiwachan Not bad. I’m not sure that Iwaizumi would be that … poetic, but it’s refreshing to see someone write from his point of view. I don’t think he’s as grumpy as he pretends to be. Keep it up!

 

 

Oikawa smiled at that one. He was still figuring all of this out. He could do better in the next chapter. Iwaizumi wouldn’t be quite as … ooc in that one. He’d show them. He’d write the best damn Iwaizumi they’d ever seen.

 

He thought back to the title. Maybe he ought to come up with a new one before he started writing again. After contemplating it for a moment, he discarded the idea. Shameless as it was, he would take that extra +2. By the time he was done with this, it would be a 12/10.

 

Pulling up a new Word document, he started on chapter 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished the rough draft of this at 5 AM. Some Christian ladies knocked on my door around 10 AM, and I'm pretty sure I accidentally scared them away. My tired face is worse than Oikawa's crying face.... I hope this is OK, though! Let me know if you catch any mistakes :) Most of the chapters will be sort of like this one, though Oikawa's writing will get a little more ... accurate as time goes on :P


	3. Chapter 3

**Ace in the Hole**

Chapter 2

Author: iloveiwachan

  

OK, so maybe his first impression of Tooru hadn’t been as glamorous as he’d made it out to be. Not that Tooru wasn’t all the things that he had described him as being, but Hajime couldn’t help but feel surprised that they had actually managed to become friends. Just the same, Hajime was incredibly grateful that they had become friends.

 

Tooru was an enigma—a mystery that Hajime desperately wanted to unravel. He would be like one of those detectives in those stupid, overly-masculine mystery novels that he pretended to read in an effort to look smart and manly at the same time.

 

He had every intention of discovering all of Tooru’s secrets and learning everything about him. But not in a creepy way, of course. That was just what best friends did.

 

But oh, it was not so easy to comprehend the many mysteries that made up Tooru.

 

Hajime hadn’t realized it then, but Tooru’s personality had as many facets as a beautiful diamond might have. While some days the boy was cheerful, outgoing, and social, other days he might fall into deep, contemplative silences as he, acting many years older than he was, thought about the meaning behind existence and other things that Hajime couldn’t quite understand.

 

But even if he couldn’t understand those things, he wanted to understand Tooru.

 

He stood outside waiting for said boy so that they could walk to school together. He was lost in the few thoughts that he had, so he didn’t hear Tooru as he approached.

 

“Iwa-chan!” Hajime winced as he turned around, pretending to hate the nickname that he actually loved. Just like how he sometimes pretended to hate Tooru, though he really actually truly loved him.

 

“You’re late, Crappykawa,” he said, using one of the mean names that he had come up with for Tooru. Unlike Tooru, he wasn’t good at creating cute nicknames. He probably meant for it to be cute, though, he just didn’t realize how bad he was at it. Tooru took pity on him because of it.

 

“I had to do my hair,” Tooru said, pointing at his brown waves, which, while not as perfect as they would become in high school, were still quite pretty. Hajime didn’t understand why the other kids sometimes teased Tooru, but he figured they must be jealous.

 

“Couldn’t you have done it faster?” Hajime asked grumpily. He wasn’t actually mad, though. If Tooru needed to take hours to get ready, then Hajime would wait faithfully by his gate, like a loyal golden retriever that actually looked like a rottweiler.

 

It would never take Tooru hours to get ready, though. He was naturally beautiful.

 

“Oh Iwa-chan,” Tooru said, looping his arm in his friend’s. “You just wouldn’t understand.” He wrinkled up his nose, which Hajime couldn’t help but find adorable. “You really ought to consider bathing every now and then, though.”

 

Hajime elbowed Tooru brutishly in the side. Tooru let out a small and delicate coughing noise, one of his ribs having been bruised by Hajime’s sharp elbows.

 

Feeling instant regret, Hajime started to apologize.

 

“I’m sorry, Tooru,” he said. “I didn’t mean to elbow you so hard. Sometimes I forget about my weirdly big arm muscles that aren’t impressive at all.”

 

“It’s OK,” Tooru murmured. “I know you can’t help it.”

 

Hajime was quiet. He was grateful for Tooru’s unconditional forgiveness, but he felt a little scared. What if one of these days he actually hurt Tooru? What if he became such a beast that he hit Tooru on a regular basis because he couldn’t appreciate Tooru’s popularity and witty sense of humor?

 

At the time, he didn’t realize that the thought was actually foreshadowing. He couldn’t quite comprehend such things, though.

 

“Let me make it up to you,” Hajime said. Tooru looked at him with a little bit of suspicion. “I’ll let you choose what we play at recess today.”

 

He acted as though this were some sort of great sacrifice. Like Tooru didn’t have tons of friends to choose from and didn’t graciously sacrifice his many options in exchange for spending time with Hajime, who wasn’t popular at all.

 

“OK,” Tooru said, willing to go along if it made Hajime feel better about himself. Sometimes he was far too nice for his own good.

 

~.~.~

 

When recess came, Tooru chose to play volleyball. Hajime remembered watching it on TV with Tooru only a few days before. While he hadn’t really understood the complicated moves, Tooru had been enraptured.

 

Tooru, being the nice person that he was, had quickly realized that he was one of the few people who could actually train Hajime into channeling his savage strength into something positive that didn’t involve hitting his best friend. This, paired with Tooru’s acute precision, would make them a force to be reckoned with. Finally, Hajime would be of some use.

 

While Tooru was an instant natural, Hajime fumbled with the ball a little. For all his raw power, he lacked the finesse that was Tooru’s forte. He quickly became frustrated, wondering over and over again if it was right for him to continue like this. Even he could see that he was holding Tooru back.

 

But Tooru, in his infinite patience, encouraged Hajime to keep going. Tooru would take care all of the complexities. All Hajime had to do was slam the ball down. That was something that Hajime could understand. He was good at slamming things.

 

By the time that recess had ended, Tooru had managed to get Hajime to a point that he could manage both jumping and hitting the ball at the same time. Multitasking had never been Hajime’s thing, so he was excited by this new development. And while he didn’t realize it, Hajime had evolved slightly thanks to Tooru’s excellent coaching.

 

Tooru had taken his first (or possibly second or third) step in making the world a better, safer place. Hajime finally had a positive outlet for his anger and strength.

 

This was the second major advancement that Tooru and Hajime had made in their relationship together (the first having been when they first became friends). The foundation of their unbreakable bond had been laid and cemented. Tooru was like a celestial being bent on making the world a better place, and Hajime was his unshakable pillar that kept him from floating off to the stars (which wouldn’t have necessarily been a bad thing, but it would have been a great loss for the earth, so it was sort of a good thing).

 

Together, they would be unbeatable.

 

***

 

Oikawa wasn’t nearly as excited when he finished this chapter. The other users were right. Iwaizumi was ooc, but Oikawa couldn’t quite bring himself to change that.

 

He was beginning to realize that, while some parts were true, most of what he had written was less about Iwaizumi and more about the way that Oikawa had wished his childhood had gone. It depressed him a little to think about it.

 

He had tried so hard to fit in back then, but Iwaizumi had always been the cool one. While Iwaizumi had only been decent at school, he had been the kid that all the guys had wanted to hang out with. He was strong, and was athletic, and, even though Oikawa claimed otherwise, was a surprisingly kind person. Everyone had wanted to be his friend.

 

For some reason he had chosen to stick with Oikawa, though. He had been supportive when Oikawa had gone through his awkward and nerdy phase. He had chased away the bullies and the nightmares, promising to stick by Oikawa when he had worried that Iwaizumi would abandon him and leave him all alone.

 

Even when they had hit high school, he had stayed with Oikawa, though it meant that he was overshadowed by Oikawa’s flamboyant personality. He could have easily been the star of any sports team, but had instead focused solely on volleyball. He had chosen to eat lunch and hang out with Oikawa, in spite of the fact he would have been welcomed by any clique in the school.

 

He really wasn’t doing Iwaizumi justice in his story. He let out a small sigh. He would give Iwaizumi more credit in the next chapter. That wasn’t to say that he would give Iwaizumi all the credit, since Oikawa _had_ made quite the contribution to their friendship, but he would even things out a little more.

 

After hitting ‘Post,’ he closed his laptop and got ready for bed, already deciding that he would wait at least a day before checking the comments. Maybe this time they wouldn’t be quite as bad, but he didn’t want to risk having his day ruined because of them. Especially since he was spending tomorrow with Iwaizumi, who would instantly pick up on his mood.

 

With that in mind, he closed his eyes. Iwaizumi’s face was the last thing that he thought of as he drifted off to sleep.

 

***

 

“Iwa-chan?”

 

“Hm?” It was a mechanical response, the one that Iwaizumi used whenever he wasn’t really listening to Oikawa, but still responded because he instinctually knew that Oikawa would annoy the hell out of him if he didn’t.

 

Clearly his instincts were terrible, because regardless of what he did, Oikawa was going to annoy him until he had Iwaizumi’s full and undivided attention.

 

“Iwa-chan?”

 

“Hm?” His response was louder this time, like he was trying to block Oikawa out. Oikawa grinned, knowing that he’d made his presence known.

 

He rested his chin on Iwaizumi’s shoulder and said, right into Iwaizumi’s ear, “IWA-CHAN.”

 

“Oh my god, Oikawa, WHAT?” Iwaizumi jumped to his feet. He was holding his book in the air, unsure if he should throw it across the room or at Oikawa. After taking a few deep breaths, he settled for dropping it on the floor.

 

He turned to look at Oikawa. In spite of the fact that his jaw was clenched shut, he somehow managed to repeat “What?” though it sounded more like a threat now.

 

“Iwa-chan, do you remember the time we first met?”

 

Iwaizumi groaned as he shook his head, sank back down to the floor, and picked up his book again, turning the pages with such force that Oikawa was surprised that he hadn’t managed to rip the book in half. “How can I forget?” he said. “I have flashbacks every time you do shit like that.” He gave Oikawa a pointed look. “Can you leave me alone for five minutes? I need to at least get through this chapter.”

 

“Iwa-chan is such a slow reader,” Oikawa complained. “I want to hear about the first time we met.”

 

“You were there,” Iwaizumi said with a snort. “Go tell yourself the story or something. We both know you like hearing yourself talk” He turned towards Oikawa and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t care what you said back then, we both know that I didn’t hit you hard enough to cause amnesia. So don’t pretend now like you don’t remember.”

 

“I can’t tell myself the story,” Oikawa said. He leaned over Iwaizumi’s shoulder again, slowly draping himself over Iwaizumi’s frame. “I want to hear Iwa-chan’s biased memory of it.”

 

Iwaizumi shifted to the side, causing Oikawa to tumble to the ground. “Yeah right,” he said. “You probably remember yourself as some sort of tiny saint, rather than the Satan incarnate that you are.”

 

Oikawa took the opportunity to snatch the book out of Iwaizumi’s hand before rolling to his feet. He flipped through the pages, pretending to study them closely. “Iwa-chan, which page were you on? Don’t pretend like you didn’t take that insult from a book.”

 

When Iwaizumi stood up to steal the book back, Oikawa held it over his head, taking full advantage of the 5 centimeters he had on his friend. He forgot, however, that Iwaizumi always found ways to compensate for the height difference.

 

Before he could react, his legs were knocked out from underneath him. He let out a surprised yelp, flailing as he tried to keep from falling, and practically throwing the book at Iwaizumi. The dark-haired boy caught the book with ease as he watched Oikawa fall unceremoniously onto the bed.

 

“Aw, Iwa-chan, if you wanted to get me in bed, you could have just said so.” Oikawa grinned as Iwaizumi rolled his eyes.

 

“As if I’d ever want you anywhere near my bed,” he said as he set the book down, ignoring the fact that Oikawa had been laying on his bad for nearly an hour while he’d played games on his phone. “Now get off, Shittykawa. I don’t want you rubbing your crappy personality all over my sheets.”

 

This time Oikawa was prepared. So when Iwaizumi made a move to seize his leg, he jumped up, curling his leg behind Iwaizumi’s. Iwaizumi stumbled and grabbed at Oikawa in an effort to regain his balance. They both clutched at each other before going down, Iwaizumi on top of Oikawa. They hit the floor with a resounding thud.

 

Oikawa let out an ‘Oof’ as Iwaizumi’s full weight collapsed on top of him, knocking the wind out of him. Iwaizumi let out a loud groan as he slowly started to lift himself up off of Oikawa. Neither of them heard the footsteps that sounded as someone ran up the stairs and through the hallway, straight towards Iwaizumi’s room.

 

“Are you two OK?” Iwaizumi’s mom started as she burst into the room. She froze when she saw Iwaizumi on top of Oikawa. “Nevermind,” she said quickly, shutting the door behind her. “I didn’t see anything! Go back to … whatever you were doing,” she called.

 

They both froze, staring at each other as they tried to register what had just happened. Only a few seconds later Iwaizumi’s dad yelled, “Use protection!”

 

Iwaizumi, having recovered from the initial shock, scrambled away from Oikawa like he had been burned. “Oh my fucking god,” he moaned as Oikawa started laughing. “What?” he snapped. Oikawa couldn’t tell if his face was red from embarrassment or anger.

 

“Your parents,” he giggled, “are awesome!”

 

He kept laughing until Iwaizumi kicked him in the side hard enough to, for the second time that day, knock the breath out of him. “Shut up! There’s no way they aren’t going to ask me about this later, and it’s going to take me forever to convince them that we weren’t doing,” he made a hand gesture that looked vaguely like a hand job, “whatever it is they thought we were doing.”

 

“Just tell them that we were studying anatomy,” Oikawa said, having finally caught his breath.

 

Iwaizumi let out a snort. “Very original,” he muttered. “Why don’t you go explain it to them.”

 

Oikawa rolled onto his stomach and grinned. “I would be more than happy to tell them how Iwa-chan, in a burst of passion, pinned his beautiful best friend to the floor, fully intent on stripping him of his maidenhead.” He was about to continue when he noticed Iwaizumi advancing on him, a threatening look on his face.

 

Oikawa shrieked, curling into a ball, only peeking out from his protective position when he wasn’t immediately hit. “Don’t make weird noises like that,” Iwaizumi strained, having stopped in his tracks as soon as Oikawa had curled up. “And don’t say creepy shit like that either!” he added after a beat. He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. Oikawa could hear him muttering something about “Having a stroke.”

 

“I’ll be quiet if Iwa-chan will tell me the story of how we met,” he said impishly.

 

“No.”

 

“Pleeeeeeease.” Iwaizumi looked close to snapping.

 

“FINE! But you have to promise you’ll actually let me study after I do.”

 

“OK!” Oikawa cheered, crossing his fingers behind his back—just in case he found an amazing and perfectly legitimate reason to bestow his attentions on Iwaizumi again.

 

“If you’re crossing your fingers,” Iwaizumi started. Oikawa quickly held his hands up.

 

“OK, OK, I promise,” he said, this time with sincerity. As Iwaizumi settled onto his bed, Oikawa sat up, crossing his legs and resting his chin in his palms as he watched Iwaizumi with rapt attention.

 

Iwaizumi opened his mouth to begin, then paused for a second. “No interruptions, either,” he said, already knowing that Oikawa would spend the entire story trying to make his own emendations. Oikawa nodded, indicating that he should continue.

 

“Alright,” Iwaizumi started again. “So I was out in my yard, catching bugs or climbing a tree or something, when a moving van pulled up at the house next door, and this pasty kid with huge glasses practically fell out.”

 

“I was never pasty,” Oikawa protested, though he couldn’t deny the glasses. “My skin was like—” He clammed up when he noticed Iwaizumi’s glare.

 

“Do you want me to keep going? Or would you rather tell it yourself?”

 

“No, keep going,” Oikawa said quickly. “I’ll be quiet this time. I promise.”

 

“Right,” Iwaizumi said, completely unconvinced. But he continued. “This weird kid fell out of the van and stumbled around for a minute like he hadn’t seen sunlight for several days. The kid wasn’t particularly interesting,” he said, almost daring Oikawa to interrupt. When Oikawa didn’t rise to the bait, he kept going. “And I had better things to do, so I went back to doing whatever it was that I had been doing.

 

“Next thing I know, he’s running after me with this crazy look in his eyes, yelling something about wanting to try out my net. I didn’t know who the fuck he was or why he was trying to steal my stuff, so I did what any person would do when they were being assaulted. I hit him over the head with my net and ran away.”

 

Ah, that was right. Iwaizumi had been pretty shy when they’d first met. That hadn’t started to change until their first or second day of elementary school, when Iwaizumi had beaten a kid up for picking on Oikawa.

 

“Then my mom dragged me over to your house and made me apologize and help you carry your boxes inside.” He let out a snort. “After that our moms had the bright idea of making us play together, and I haven’t been able to get rid of you since. The end.”

 

“I wasn’t _that_ bad, though,” Oikawa said, finding his voice again now that the story was over.

 

“You’re right.” Oikawa perked up for a second, then Iwaizumi finished his sentence. “You were worse.”

 

Oikawa hopped on the bed again to retrieve his phone, but then, rather than getting down, curled up next to Iwaizumi. He unlocked his screen and went back to the game he had been playing.

 

“Hey,” Iwaizumi said, nudging at him with his foot, “get off.”

 

“I don’t wanna. Your floor is too hard.” Oikawa pouted. “You’re a terrible host, Iwa-chan.”

 

“You act like you were actually invited here,” he replied sarcastically. “And go sit at the desk then. I don’t want my mom walking on us again and thinking that we’re actually doing stuff or something.”

 

“I don’t think she’ll come back.” Oikawa stretched his arms over his head. “She probably thinks we’re cuddled together, sharing post-coital bliss—”

 

“No,” Iwaizumi said, shoving a pillow over Oikawa’s face. “Whatever it is you were going to say, just no.” He grabbed his book again, flipping through the pages until he found the section he had been reading before Oikawa had graciously interrupted him.

 

Despite his previous complaints, he didn’t make a move to get away from Oikawa. Taking that as a sign that everything was OK between them, Oikawa snuggled a little closer, letting out a contented noise as Iwaizumi began to reflexively run his fingers through Oikawa’s hair.

 

They spent the rest of their afternoon like that. Oikawa couldn’t tell if Iwaizumi was petting him out of habit or because it was one of the few things that made Oikawa shut up, but either way, he wasn’t complaining. He pressed his face against Iwaizumi’s side, inhaling the comforting smell that was a mixture of Iwaizumi’s laundry detergent, body wash, and natural scent.

 

Oikawa switched between various games on his phone, never entirely paying attention to them as he thought about what he would write next. He was starting to wonder if he actually wanted to write a semi-accurate description of their childhood. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to throw in some romantic undertones. That was the site’s theme, after all.

 

He started to imagine when they would have their first kiss. Maybe sometime during middle school, possibly a few moments after Iwaizumi gave him that heated speech about not being the only player on the court. He vividly remembered the fire blazing behind Iwaizumi’s eyes as he had grabbed Oikawa by the shirt. Iwaizumi could have easily tugged him a little closer before pressing their mouths together.

 

He could already imagine what it would have felt like. Iwaizumi would have done it without thinking. Any hesitation that he might have felt before would have been burned away by the anger and fear that only made an appearance when he was truly worried about Oikawa.

 

His lips would have crashed against Oikawa’s and he would have instantly claimed Oikawa’s mouth. He would have forced his tongue between Oikawa’s own lips, and his eagerness would have made up for his inexperience. While Oikawa would have been surprised at first, he would have melted into Iwaizumi’s touch, his body aching, begging Iwaizumi for more.

 

They wouldn’t, of course, have had sex right then and there, but it would have been the start of their intense longing for one another. They would have begun a clandestine relationship, highlighted by intense make out sessions during breaks in practice, in the showers when everyone else had gone home, on the sidewalk outside their homes, hidden by the trees and shadows of the streetlamps.

 

Everything would have been so wrong, but felt so right as they tried to resist, but gave into their love for one another. It would all culminate into a hot night spent together in one of their houses. They would finally let go of their misgivings and succumb to their lust for one another, quickly undressing each other before—

 

Oh….

 

Oikawa could feel a twitching in his pants that definitely hadn’t been there earlier. His body practically seized up as he realized what he had been thinking about. That … wasn’t…. That wasn’t the way that he thought of Iwaizumi. His friend had never been the object of his fantasies. And the thought of him most certainly had never made Oikawa as hard as a rock.

 

But he couldn’t deny the painfully awkward and uncomfortable evidence that had created a prominent bulge in his jeans.

 

Oikawa swallowed hard, trying to decide his best course of action. It was a miracle that Iwaizumi hadn’t realized how stiff his entire body (every single part of it) had become. There was no way Oikawa could explain that to him. Not given how flustered he already was.

 

So giving up on all attempts at subtlety, Oikawa leapt out of the bed, nearly falling flat on his face in his hurry to get out of there. Yelling some sort of ridiculous excuse about needing to help his mother clean the basement, he quickly grabbed his things and ran out the door.

 

Iwaizumi, hardly surprised by the weird antics that were practically a trademark of Oikawa’s personality, just rolled his eyes. Whatever was wrong with his friend, it had bothered him enough that he seemed to have forgotten that the Oikawas didn’t even have a basement.

 

The dark-haired boy let out a small sigh. He would get it out of Oikawa later.

 

***

 

“Morning, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa said amiably as he met Iwaizumi at the gate. After a long night of questioning his staunchly heterosexual orientation, he had relaxed himself enough that he could greet his best friend without a trace of anxiety. He felt much better about himself and about their friendship.

 

Iwaizumi, never having been a morning person, just grumbled at him incoherently as he shouldered his bag.

 

“Have a good day at school, you two!” Iwaizumi’s mother waved from the door, winking at Oikawa when they made eye contact. He slung his arm around Iwaizumi and waved back, deciding to make the most of his friend’s embarrassment.

 

Iwaizumi immediately pushed him away as he started walking. He didn’t respond to his mother’s goodbye, frowning as she laughed and closed the door. “I hate you so much,” he said as Oikawa started to whistle cheerfully.

 

“Don’t hate me ‘cause I’m beautiful, Iwa-chan,” he said, quoting an American song he’d heard the other day. “Your mom seems awfully happy today,” he added when Iwaizumi didn’t answer.

 

Iwaizumi gave him a scathing look. “You idiot. My parents gave me the most awkward speech last night on the importance of using protection … And I’m pretty sure my mom took pictures of my expression the entire time.” Oikawa made a mental not to ask her for a few of them.

 

“Surely it wasn’t that bad,” Oikawa said, trying to hide his smile. Iwaizumi was silent for a moment, then the corners of his lips lifted a little. Oikawa watched him warily. Iwaizumi’s smile only appeared when he was really happy, and that could either mean great or terrible things for Oikawa. He had a feeling it would be the latter this time.

 

“Well, why don’t you tell me later? I’m 95% sure that my mom is planning on calling your mom at some point today.”

 

All the blood instantly drained from Oikawa’s face. While Iwaizumi’s family liked to poke fun at him, the teasing was almost exclusively limited to their small household, though occasionally they would let Oikawa’s parents in on the joke. Oikawa’s family, however, liked to gossip. If his mom found out, then his dad, sister, brother in law, nephew, grandparents—everyone in his entire family, along with family friends and coworkers—would think that he was having sex with Iwaizumi.

 

“You have to stop her,” he gasped.

 

“Nah,” Iwaizumi said nonchalantly, enjoying Oikawa’s reaction. “If my family knows, then it only seems fair that your family should know, too.”

 

“But my sister,” Oikawa said, grasping as straws, “she’ll make fun of you, too.”

 

“Your sister loves me,” was Iwaizumi’s response. “I’m pretty sure she’ll save the brunt of it for you.”

 

It was true. Oikawa’s sister probably loved Iwaizumi more than her own brother. Whenever she was home, the two found ways to conspire against him. They were like Makki and Mattsun, only twice as bad, because they had baby photos and childhood stories to use against him.

 

He let out a long groan and lifted his face to the sky, praying to any god that would listen that Iwaizumi’s mother wouldn’t follow through with it. Slowing his steps a little, he considered running back to Iwaizumi’s house and begging his mother not to do it. Before he could make a move, though, Iwaizumi grabbed on to his blazer.

“Nope. You’re not making us late to school,” he said firmly in a tone that promised he would drag Oikawa kicking and screaming the remainder of the way.

 

Oikawa let out a small whimper. Of course Iwaizumi would follow him. He had practically made it his job to act as Oikawa’s handler, pulling him here and there in an effort to keep him out of trouble. And, every now in then, in an effort to get revenge.

 

“It wasn’t my fault,” Oikawa said pitifully.

 

“It was all your fault,” Iwaizumi corrected. “Every awkward situation we have ever been in has been at least partially your fault, if not entirely your fault. This never would have happened if you hadn’t pulled me down on top of you.”

 

“Self defense!” he protested. “Violence isn’t always the answer, Iwa-chan.”

 

“It’s the only answer you ever listen to.” Iwaizumi shook his head as they made their way up the school’s drive. “God knows you don’t hear me when I try to talk some sense into you.”

 

“That’s because Iwa-chan doesn’t make any sense,” Oikawa grumbled, pushing open the door to the main hallway.

 

Iwaizumi shoved him lightly. “Get to class, stupid.” He turned to walk towards his first class, but then called over his shoulder, “And tell your mom and sister I said hi.”

 

Oikawa made a face as he stared at his former best friend’s back. Today was going to be a very long day.

 

***

 

By lunchtime, Oikawa had gotten no fewer than five texts from his sister, all of which contained links to wedding sites and sites that explained the ‘Most satisfying positions’ when having gay sex. That, paired with his mother’s texts about STIs, made him want to throw his phone against the wall.

 

“Uh-oh. I think Iwaizumi’s finally filed for a divorce,” Hanamaki said as Oikawa walked over to their usual spot on the roof.

 

“About time. We all know he can do better,” Matsukawa replied, trading a grin with his friend. “So what happened this time?” he asked, directing his question towards Oikawa.

 

“Iwa-chan has been telling people that he had sex with me,” Oikawa said vindictively as he pointed at Iwaizumi, who was only a few feet away.

 

Iwaizumi only rolled his eyes. “Like I would want to have sex with that piece of trash,” he said with a derisive snort.

 

Makki and Mattsun glanced between the two of them expectantly. “So,” Makki said, “Are you going to tell us, or should we make our own assumptions about what happened?”

 

That was enough to make both Oikawa and Iwaizumi talk, and they tripped over each other in their effort to get the story out.

 

“And that was what happened,” Oikawa finished. He looked to Iwaizumi for confirmation, and Iwaizumi nodded.

 

“That’s all that happened,” he confirmed. Makki and Mattsun exchanged dubious looks.

 

Oikawa couldn’t help but add, “And now Iwa-chan’s parents are devastated because they thought that they were getting a real human as a son in law. Now all they have is this Neanderthal.” Iwaizumi elbowed him in the side. “See what I mean!” Oikawa exclaimed.

 

“Dumbass, I’m pretty sure it would be the other way around,” he countered. “Though I’m positive your family likes me enough that they wouldn’t me to be chained to you for the rest of my life.”

 

“Chained?” Matsukawa said, raising his eyebrows at Hanamaki, who leaned forward.

 

“Tell us more about these chains.”

 

They both barely avoided being pushed off the roof by Iwaizumi as Oikawa cheered him on.

 

***

 

Oikawa wanted to die by the time he got home. Makki and Mattsun had taken it upon themselves to enlighten the team about Oikawa and Iwaizumi’s supposed extracurricular activities. He had walked into the locker room just in time to hear them explaining the proper precautions to take when they witnessed any form of PDA.

 

“Just avert your eyes,” Makki had said. “They have no sense of decency, and might go down on each other at any minute.” Mattsun had nodded his affirmation.

 

The entire team, sans Kindaichi, had ignored them. After the great Oikawa/Iwaizumi porn incident, they had made a point to ignore any suggestive statements the pair had made about their captain and vice captain, for which Oikawa was grateful. Having random, completely unwarranted sexual thoughts about Iwaizumi was bad enough.

 

After having made it through practice and survived his mom and sister’s onslaught of texts, Oikawa was ready to pass out. He flopped onto his bed and closed his eyes, willing himself to fall asleep.

 

His body, of course, chose that very moment to give him a sudden burst of energy, and he opened his eyes less than a few seconds later. He let out a sigh, which was practically the only noise he had been able to make today. Iwaizumi had spent most of the day translating the various noises for everyone else, who had no idea what the brunet was upset about.

 

Sitting up, he reached for his laptop. Might as well get a few things out of the way if he couldn’t nap. He opened a new browser tab and went to the fan site, which he had thought about off and on throughout the entire day. The stupid site had been the source of all his most recent problems, and he couldn’t help but resent it as he watched the page load.

 

He resented it even more, though, when the very first image on the screen was a picture of him running after Iwaizumi, ice cream smeared on his face as he pointed his cone straight ahead.

 

Oikawa covered his eyes. He should have known that someone would have gotten a picture of that. They hadn’t exactly been in a private area, and it was no wonder one of his classmates had managed to snap a picture.

 

Willing himself to forget about it, he navigated to his story and scrolled down to the comments. Masochistic as it was, he might as well get it out of the way. Better to have one extremely bad day than to spread it out over the entire week.

 

 

 

thegrandqueen [7:12 AM]: okay, this is a little better. i still want iwa to be more confident, though.

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [7:49 AM]: 2nd?

 

oikawabae [8:19 AM]: ughhhhhhhhhhhhh

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [8:29 AM]: @thegrandmoderator :(

 

iwaizumitooru [9:06 AM]: *Squeals* I love it when volleyball is actually involved! It’s like the center of their relationship!!!

 

ballsb4brawn [10:51 AM]: why the f are you guys always up so early?

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [10:57 AM]: @mrsiwaizumihajime strike 5.75?

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [11:30 AM]: 1 ltr should b ok

 

settersdoitbetter [12:33 PM]: @iloveiwachan This is great! Your writing is really developing :) I’m so glad to see that they’re playing volleyball! It feels very authentic. Please keep it up!

 

iwasarms [1:01 PM]: ^

 

ewhyzoome [1:05 PM]: I can totally sea Hajime as a rotweler XD

 

oikawabae [1:19 PM]: @ewhyzoome his hare is like heckles!!!!

 

ballsb4brawn [2:31 PM] @ewhyzoome @oikawabae see, Rottweiler, hair, hackles

 

ballb4brawn [2:33 PM] @ewhyzoome @oikawabae are you guys in middle school or something?

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [2:37 PM]: @ballsb4brawn strike 6.5 no bullying

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [2:37 PM]: @thegrandmoderator approved?

 

oikawabae [2:40 PM]: @ballsb4brawn omg ur so mean

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [3:29 PM]: @mrsiwaizumihajime approved. i trust your judgment <3

 

thatswhatsheset [4:20 PM]: <3

 

iwasarms [5:02 PM]: ^ no

 

ewhyzoome [5:21 PM]: @iwasarms What do u have agangst <3?

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [6:17 PM]: @thatswhatsheset +1 day. you’re back up to 9 days again

 

iloveoikawa [8:44 PM] @iloveiwachan Nice! This was pretty cute. Can you write them talking more? I liked the dialogue.

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [9:14 PM]: @obligatoryusername plz hndle @thatswhatsheset

 

iwaoifangurl [9:47 PM]: They r going 2 fall in luv eventually, r8?

 

thegrandqueen [11:31 PM]: @iwaoifangurl they always fall in love eventually. it’s fate.

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [5:52 AM]: @thegrandqueen excpt n real lfe

 

thegrandqueen [9:39 AM]: @mrsiwaizumihajime it’ll happen. any day now.

 

obligatoryusername [11:11 AM]: @mrsiwaizumihajime okay

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [11:22 AM]: @thegrandqueen @mrsiwaizumihajime we’ve been saying that for years :(

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [11:24 AM]: @obligatoryusername thank you!

 

settersdoitbetter [1:15 PM]: @thegrandqueen @mrsiwaizumihajime @thegrandmoderator Don’t give up hope yet! They just need a little push. Maybe we can do something at a match ;)

 

ballsb4brawn [1:59 PM]: @settersdoitbetter you’re just looking for an excuse to screw up a match

 

iwasarms [2:02 PM]: ^ i agree

 

settersdoitbetter [2:06 PM]: @ballsb4brawn I would never ;)

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [2:16 PM]: @settersdoitbetter please no conspiring/threats

 

ballsb4brawn [2:20 PM]: @thegrandmoderator you’re not giving @settersdoitbetter a strike for that? wt ef is this?

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [2:23 PM]: @ballsb4brawn consider it a pre-strike

 

settersdoitbetter [2:24 PM]: @ballsb4brawn <3

 

obligatoryusername [5:37 PM]: @thegrandmoderator np problem solved

 

 

 

Oikawa wasn’t sure how to feel when he finished—aside from a little worried about their next game. He really hoped no one made embarrassing signs or ran onto the court. He didn’t want any distractions, and he also didn’t want anyone to provoke Iwaizumi. His friend usually limited his violence to Oikawa, but there had been that one time a photographer had practically walked onto the court during the middle of a match to get a better picture. Iwaizumi had accidentally on purpose spiked a ball less than a foot away from them. It hadn’t happened since.

 

His mind going back to the comments, he couldn’t help but wonder if the comments went off track in every story or if it was limited to his story. He should check that out at some point. In spite of the constant tangents, the feedback had been mostly not negative this time, which made him feel better about his writing. It was getting better.

 

Maybe this day hadn’t been completely awful, after all. The likes were up to 14, which wasn’t fantastic, but either more people were reading or more of the initial readers had started to enjoy it. Either way, that was a good thing.

 

He went back to the original document and started to reread the story. The next chapter was going to be the best one yet. And it was going to keep getting better after that, he decided. Oikawa Tooru didn’t do anything halfway, after all.

 

As he thought about what he would write next, his mind went back to the scenes he had imagined while at Iwaizumi’s the other day. Before he could go any further, he shook his head. No. He wasn’t going to make it that kind of story. There were enough of those already, anyway. He wouldn’t let his mind go there.

 

He considered it for a second. Well, it couldn’t hurt to think about it … just a tiny bit. As long as he didn’t put it down on paper, it didn’t count, right?

 

Oikawa started imagining the scene that had been so rudely interrupted. He snaked his hand down to his pants, undoing the belt and button before he reached past the waistband of his boxers. He could already feel his length starting to stiffen as he picked up where he had left off.

 

He slowly started to pump himself as he imagined Iwaizumi undressing him, practically ripping the buttons off his shirt in his haste to touch Oikawa’s skin. Oikawa, of course, would have already pulled Iwaizumi’s shirt off, and would be licking his abs while running his hands against those ridiculously toned biceps of his.

 

He moaned slightly, biting against his hand in an effort to muffle the noise. God, he loved Iwaizumi’s arms. He could just imagine his friend pulling his boxers down with his teeth before lifting Oikawa against the wall with one hand as he slowly fingered him open with the other, scissoring his digits as he prepared Oikawa.

 

Oikawa pushed his pants down further as he tugged himself out completely. His cock was practically weeping as he stroked himself. He picked up the pace as he pictured Iwaizumi getting ready to thrust inside him. He would bite Oikawa’s shoulder as he slammed into him, pinning him against the wall—

 

That was as far as Oikawa got. His vision went white as he came, faster than he had in a long time and harder than he could ever remember. He let out a guttural groan. Iwaizumi’s name was on his lips, though he wasn’t quite capable of forming the words.

 

He let himself collapse against his desk, ignoring the dull pain that went through his forearms as they smacked against the hard surface. After a few moments, he sat up.

 

“Shit,” he muttered, looking down at the mess. This wasn’t good. He was pretty sure that this wasn’t what Makki and Mattsun had meant when they had told him to get it out of his system.

 

He headed to the bathroom, cleaning himself up before changing into a pair of pajama pants. He sat back down at the desk and stared at his computer. His screen had gone black, having gone to sleep while he had … taken care of business. He wondered if it was a sign that he should stop. Maybe this had gone a little too far.

 

Against his better judgment, he hit the enter key twice, waking up the small machine. When he logged back in, the blank document he had opened immediately appeared. He stared at it warily, as though the mental images he’d had of himself and Iwaizumi might suddenly show up.

 

He took a deep breath. This was fine. He could do this. There was nothing wrong with what he had been writing. As long as he stayed away from the rest of the site, nothing else would happen. Besides, he felt like he ought to finish what he had started. A couple of the readers had asked him to continue, and it would be wrong to let them down, right?

 

With that in mind, he got back to work. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't write smut D: I'm pretty sure my face was bright red the entire time. Anyway, I hope you guys liked it! Thanks for reading <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Ace in the Hole**

Chapter 3

Author: iloveiwachan

 

 

“Hey, Tooru, wait up!” Hajime called after his friend, who was several steps ahead of him (literally and figuratively, since Tooru beat him at everything he did).

 

Tooru stopped in his tracks and waited for Hajime to catch up to him. He had long since accepted that he would spend a lot of time waiting for Hajime, since his friend had trouble understanding things like how to read a clock and walking and talking at the same time

 

He’d known that this would happen when he’d first decided to extend a charitable hand to Hajime and become his friend. Sometimes you could judge a book by its cover. If Hajime had been a book, he would have been a short one with lots of pictures.

 

“Thanks for waiting,” Hajime grumbled, completely oblivious to Tooru’s patience and kindness towards him. He had trouble with abstract concepts sometimes.

 

Hajime wasn’t as bad as he seemed, though. In spite of the fact that he looked terrible next to Tooru (but then, everyone did), he still had a few redeeming qualities. Like his ability to make Tooru look absolutely stunning simply by standing next to him.

 

He was also somehow very kind, like a gentle giant who wasn’t actually a giant, since Hajime was actually quite short. And who sometimes (frequently) wasn’t gentle at all.

 

“Iwa-chan.” Tooru said it so softly that Hajime initially thought that he was hearing voices. Tooru usually spoke assertively, and Hajime, not able to comprehend the fact that, unlike him, multifaceted moods and personalities. Not multiple personalities, of course, but complex personalities. Tooru had a very complex personality.

 

Hajime glanced over at him. “Yeah?” he said, not really sure what was going on.

 

“Do you think that maybe you should stop calling me by my first name?”

 

That caught Hajime off guard and he stopped short (which was an apt description given his height). “What?” he asked. “Why … why would I do that?” He seemed more than a little confused, and Tooru cast him a pitying glance.

 

“It’s just….” Tooru chewed on his perfect lip, an action that made Hajime realize that something was definitely wrong. “Don’t you think it’s a little weird for you to call me by your first name now that we’re going into middle school?”

 

Hajime clenched his fists by his sides. “What does that matter?” he asked.

 

“Just … just promise you’ll call me Oikawa from now on? Please?”

 

Hajime didn’t understand it, which wasn’t necessarily unusual. There were a lot of things that he didn’t understand, and he was OK with that, because he didn’t understand why it was important to understand things.

 

Just the same, he wanted to understand this. He had always called Tooru by his first name. Calling him something different didn’t make sense to his very slowly developing mind (which was, admittedly, developing, so don’t think it’s mean to say it wasn’t fully developed yet).

 

“You wouldn’t understand,” Tooru sighed. Hajime was startled by what seemed to be an act of mind reading. He stared at Tooru with wide eyes.

 

“How … how did you know what I was thinking?” he gasped, not sure if he ought to be afraid or in awe of Tooru, whose talents surprised him every day—even though some, but not all, of his talents were actually basic tasks that any normal human could do. That wasn’t Hajime’s fault for not being able to tell the difference, though.

 

“You were talking out loud,” Tooru said. He was too nice to trick Hajime into thinking that he had powers that he actually didn’t. He wasn’t mean spirited and had never tried to trick Hajime into thinking that Tooru was an alien, though Hajime definitely would have believed it if he had.

 

“Oh.” Hajime had forgotten that he frequently said his thoughts aloud, because thinking quietly was confusing sometimes. “I still don’t understand,” he said.

 

“People usually only call each other by their given name if they’re family,” Tooru blushed a little, “or in a relationship.”

 

Hajime cocked his head to the side. “We’re like family, aren’t we? And we’re in a relationship!”

 

“Not that kind of relationship!” Tooru said. He looked surprised, but Hajime wasn’t sure why. He didn’t fully comprehend the different types of relationships. After all, he’d never had a girlfriend before. He probably thought that a girlfriend was a girl who was a friend. Tooru had to set him straight before Hajime started calling Tooru his boyfriend.

 

“So we don’t have a relationship?” Hajime’s face drooped a little. He looked like a sad, but very adorable porcupine. Adorable in the same way that a cute but funny-looking pet might be adorable. Not because Tooru found him adorable in a romantic relationship kind of way.

 

Tooru’s heart ached as his confused friend tried to figure out the complexities of human relationships on a non-primitive level.

 

“We’re friends,” he said. “That’s what we are.”

 

Hajime perked up a little. “And we’re family, too? Friends and family?”

 

“Er, sort of,” Tooru said. It was surprisingly difficult to dumb down something that his brain understood in much more intricate terms. He did his best to explain, though. “Most people don’t understand that we’re family since we don’t look the same and we aren’t brothers. So we can’t go around telling people we’re family or acting super close like family would. People might misunderstand why we act that way.”

 

Hajime furrowed his brow. Misunderstand was a very long word. He sort of, on a very basic level, understood what Oikawa was saying, though. People who were family looked like each other. He wasn’t beautiful and perfect like Tooru, so he couldn’t act like he was Tooru’s family.

 

“OK,” he said, then started walking again. He didn’t understand it, but he had at least reached a point that he sort of got that there were some things he just couldn’t understand. Hajime had, by that point, developed very basic self awareness.

 

Tooru stood there a moment, then, sighing a little, walked after his friend. He was sad that Hajime would never get why he was doing this, but he’d resigned himself to the fact that Haijme would probably never really understand why he did what he did.

 

***

 

Oikawa was a little depressed by the time he finished. Mainly by the name part. Iwaizumi had been the one to suggest that they stop calling each other by their first names. In fact, if Oikawa switched their names around, then the conversation he’d written was basically the same one that he’d had with Iwaizumi.

 

That had been around the time that Oikawa had coined the nickname ‘Iwa-chan,’ since calling his best friend Iwaizumi felt painfully formal. He had wanted to use something that would make him feel closer to the other boy. Something that made Oikawa feel like Iwaizumi belonged to him. He didn’t want to call him the same name that everyone else used for him.

 

He remembered the first time that Iwaizumi had called him Oikawa. Sure, he’d gotten used to it by now, but the first time had been heart breaking. He had managed to stave off the tears for the majority of the day, but when he’d gotten home, he’d cried for several hours. It had taken weeks before he could hear the name without cringing slightly. At least he hadn’t added ‘kun’ or ‘chan’ to the name. Oikawa wouldn’t have been able to handle that.

 

He pushed his computer away. He really ought to rename this story ‘How Oikawa Wishes His Life Had Gone.’ It wasn’t that he was upset with his life or that he would, even for a second, consider trading his life for anyone else’s. No, he just wished that some parts of his life had gone a little differently.

 

After having written several chapters of his story, he was starting to also realize that many of the things he would have changed had something, if not everything, to do with Iwaizumi. He knew he meant a lot to Iwaizumi, but Iwaizumi meant the world to him.

 

He was getting dangerously close to changing the direction of his story. If this story was a glance into his own psyche, then he didn’t even want to think about what it would say about him if it started to get romantic or sexual. There was only so much that he could lie to himself about.

 

After posting the chapter, he checked the time. It was after 4 AM, long past the time that he should have gone to bed. He’d think about the rest of this later, he decided. Preferably when he was mentally capable of completely denying all of the weird thoughts he’d been having lately.

 

Yeah, he’d think about it then.

 

***

 

“Iwaizumi-chan.” Oikawa said it slowly, barely noticing Iwaizumi, who had inhaled the last bite of whatever he had been eating, and was now having a coughing fit. Oikawa cocked his head to the side as he thought about it. It sounded all wrong, like a foreign word that he knew he was pronouncing incorrectly.

 

He finally glanced over at Iwaizumi, whose coughing had attracted the worried glances of several other patrons eating at the restaurant. “Are you OK?” Oikawa asked, taking note of the slightly purplish tinge that his face had started to take on. Iwaizumi, of course, didn’t say anything, but gave Oikawa a death glare that was just as much of an answer.

 

Hopping up quickly, he moved over to Iwaizumi’s side of the booth and slapped Iwaizumi on the back, putting all of his strength into it. It wasn’t something he got to do very often—not without fearing for his life, at least—so he couldn’t and say that there wasn’t some satisfaction in it.

 

It fixed the problem, but still earned him a slightly-less-intense glare as Iwaizumi chugged the remainder of his glass water. He then sat up straight and shoved his bowl of ramen to the side.

 

“What the hell was that for?” he asked, his voice still slightly rough.

 

“What are you talking about?” Oikawa said defensively as he returned to his seat, really hoping that Iwaizumi wouldn’t hit him back. “I just saved your life.”

 

Iwaizumi leaned across the table and flicked Oikawa on the forehead. “I meant the name, stupid,” he said. “What gives? I tried to get you to call me that for years, but only now do you decide to?” He shook his head. “What gives?” he asked again.

 

“Do you want me to call you that from now on?” Oikawa asked, a strange sinking feeling settling in the pit of his stomach. He tried and failed to conjur up a smile. “Iwa-chan has a cuteness deficiency, so I thought that giving him a cute nickname might help with that.” He shook his head and sighed. “Alas, wishful thinking can only do so much. Wouldn’t you say so, Iwaizumi-kun?” he asked, trying out the name again. Nope, it still sounded wrong.

 

Iwaizumi noticeably flinched. His lip curled slightly and he shook his head, turning back to his food. “Nah, sounds too weird at this point. Plus everyone would think something happened between us, and I don’t wanna deal with any gossip.”

 

“Oh?” Oikawa leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands, doing his best to hide his relief. “And what would they think had happened between us?” he asked

 

“Fuck if I know. What’s up with you lately, anyway?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“You just called me ‘Iwaizumi,’” he said, making air quotes as he did. “Even added the honorific onto the end. I don’t think you’ve ever called me that—not even when you were mad. Plus you’ve been acting weird and shit.” He held up a hand. “And don’t say it’s because you’re sleep deprived. We both know that you’ve functioned more normally on less sleep than this. Though you do need sleep,” he said, giving Oikawa a hard look. He picked up his chopsticks and started eating again, though never taking his eyes off of Oikawa as he waited for an answer.

 

Oikawa shrugged. “I just wanted to see how you would react,” he said. It wasn’t exactly a lie. He had been curious what his friend would say, just not for the reasons Iwaizumi would probably think.

 

The explanation was one he was pretty sure Iwaizumi would believe. Oikawa enjoyed saying things that would catch people off guard—especially if those people were on teams opposing his own. And it wouldn’t be the first time that he had done it to Iwaizumi, so he was almost certain that his friend wouldn’t ask too many questions about it.

 

As he’d expected, Iwaizumi let out a snort and shook his head. “You’re a piece of shit, you know that?” He grabbed his bowl again and returned to eating. “But seriously,” he said between bites, “it still seems like something weird is going on with you.”

 

“Rude!” Oikawa said, pouting a little. “Just because you don’t understand that normal humans are capable of displaying more than one or two emotions doesn’t make me weird.”

 

Iwaizumi let out a laugh at that. “Emotions? More like multiple personalities.”

 

Oikawa just stuck his tongue out, not able to think of a good rebuttal. It was something Iwaizumi said frequently, and he’d used up all of his good comebacks. Instead he settled for swirling a chopstick in his bowl in an attempt to make a small whirlpool.

 

Iwaizumi finally finished the last bit of his ramen. As soon as he did, he peered into Oikawa’s own bowl.

 

“Are you going to finish that?” he asked, regarding at Oikawa’s half-eaten bowl like it had personally offended him.

 

“Do you want it?” Oikawa shoved it toward him. “I suppose I’ll sacrifice my sustenance so that Iwa-chan can get fat,” he said, giving Iwaizumi a pitiful look.

 

“Like hell I want it. You don’t eat enough real food.”

 

“I do, too!” Oikawa argued. “I eat all the time.”

 

“Somehow I doubt that milk bread is on the food pyramid,” he said, then gave Oikawa a sly grin. “I found your stash, by the way, and may or may not have confiscated about half of it. If you don’t start eating actual food,” he said, nodding towards Oikawa’s bowl, “then I’m sure Takeru would love to have what I took.”

 

Oikawa let out an unhappy noise. “You can’t do that! It’s cheating. Besides,” he protested, “why are you giving my nephew something that you’re saying is unhealthy.”

 

“Because he’s young and has a better metabolism. Plus he won’t eat it all in a day. At least he knows what portion control is.”

 

“I wish Makki and Mattsun hadn’t bailed on us,” Oikawa said mournfully, staring down into his bowl. “You’re not half as pushy when they’re around.”

 

“That’s because the three of you together are impossible to handle,” was Iwaizumi’s retort. “It’s hard enough keeping up with you as it is.” He leaned forward, his face close to Oikawa’s. “Now eat.”

 

At that moment a group of college girls walked by. Out of the corner of his eye, Oikawa saw one of them glance at them. She turned to her friend and whispered something. Oikawa could distinctly hear the words ‘So cute,’ as both of them looked his and Iwaizumi’s way.

 

Iwaizumi, apparently, had heard them as well, because he quickly leaned back, an annoyed expression crossing his face.

 

“Why the hell does everyone think we’re together?” he muttered irritably.

 

Oikawa was starting to wonder the same thing. Even his family, all of whom well aware that he and Iwaizumi were only this close because they’d known each other for forever, had thought that they might be together. They hadn’t been totally convinced about the sex part, but they also hadn’t immediately dismissed the possibility that their son and his best friend were dating.

 

To be honest, it was starting to concern him a little. Was he giving off … vibes or something? Was that even a thing?

 

“It’s ‘cause I’m so cute and Iwa-chan can’t help but stare at me,” he said, dismissing the thoughts.

 

Iwaizumi let out a snort. “I’d date a volleyball before I’d date you,” he said. “And you’re not my type, anyway.”

 

“I was under the impression that you already were.” Oikawa said, sticking out his tongue. “And what’s Iwa-chan’s type?” He tried to ignore the stab of hurt he’d felt at Iwaizumi’s words. He tried covering it up, choosing to wink at Iwaizumi. “You can’t say that I’m not your type. I’m everyone’s type.”

 

“You’re disgusting,” Iwaizumi said, rolling his eyes. “And I dunno. Short. Cute. Not loud and not obnoxious.”

 

So basically the opposite of Oikawa. Minus the cute. He was adorable. And he wasn’t loud or obnoxious, which meant that the only thing that he had going against him was the short part. He tried not to frown. Did that mean Iwaizumi liked petite people? Because while Oikawa could claim to be petite and delicate, his frame and muscle tone suggested that he was anything but.

 

“Short is overrated,” Oikawa said, waving a hand and trying to not suddenly hate every person under 5’6”. “Short people are underdeveloped normal people.” God, it was a good thing none of his fan club was around, he thought as Iwaizumi’s jaw dropped. He’d probably lose half of them if they heard him. He knew that he was being petty, but….

 

“That is one of the most offensive things I’ve ever heard you say,” Iwaizumi said, shaking his head. “And that’s saying something.” He narrowed his eyes. “How many times have you told me that I’m short?” he asked, voice dangerously low.

 

“I was just kidding,” Oikawa grumbled, stabbing at the noodles in his bowl. He really shouldn’t be as upset as he was now, but for some reason what Iwaizumi had said really bothered him. Maybe it was the fact that he liked people to like him. That had never come into play with Iwaizumi, though. Not like this.

 

They sat in silence as Oikawa finished his food. He could feel Iwaizumi’s eyes on him the entire time, probably wondering why he was especially sensitive today. Fortunately his friend didn’t ask any questions. It wasn’t like he had answers to them anyway.

 

He was relieved when the waitress dropped off the check, though he couldn’t help but feel self-conscious when she didn’t even bother asking if they wanted to split it into two bills. Iwaizumi was reaching for it when his phone buzzed. “Makki and Mattsun are on their way,” he said glancing at it as he pulled out his wallet.

 

Oikawa let out a huff. “I thought they had some sort of personal emergency.”

 

“Knowing them, Makki probably ran out of creampuffs or something.” He glanced up at Oikawa. “Don’t shake your head like that. You do the same thing when you run out of whatever processed food you’re addicted to.” He pulled out his card and dropped it on the receipt, leaning back as he waited for their server to come by again.

 

“Y’know Iwa-chan,” Oikawa said playfully, “if you don’t want people to think we’re together, then you really should stop paying for me.”

 

Iwaizumi raised an eyebrow. “You’re turning down a free meal?” He let out a bark of laughter as he retrieved his card and pushed the tab towards Oikawa. “By all means, be my guest, then.”

 

Oikawa stared down at it in horror. “That wasn’t what I said!” he complained. “I just said that you shouldn’t pay if you don’t want to people to think that we’re together.” He flashed a grin. “Which I’m sure you do.”

 

“I don’t want people to think we’re together,” Iwaizumi said blandly, pushing the bill even closer to Oikawa. “My standards are way higher than that.”

 

“But you obviously want people to think we’re together, right?” Oikawa argued. “What a privilege it must be for people to think that someone as ugly as Iwa-chan could actually snag a date with the beautiful, magnificent—”

 

He let out a squeak as Iwaizumi slid out of the booth.

 

“Iwa-chan, where are you going? You can’t leave in the middle of my monologue!”

 

Iwaizumi smirked at him. “What? Can the beautiful, magnificent Tooru not handle his date walking out on him?” He threw his hand against his forehead, an uncharacteristically dramatic gesture, and let out a small gasp. “Whatever will the people think?”

 

Oikawa just gaped at him, which Iwaizumi responded to with a grin. “Relax, I’m just going to the bathroom.” He surreptitiously checked his phone again before walking away.

 

“You better not climb out the window,” Oikawa called, completely ignoring the stares that everyone was sending their way. “You’re still paying for this!” He held up the bill and waved it at Iwaizumi, who just flipped him off.

 

He sat back down, finally realizing just how many people were watching him. He wasn’t usually this … flamboyant in public, but Iwaizumi had called him Tooru, something that he hadn’t done since late elementary school/early middle school. It made him happier than he wanted to admit … but he was really happy.

 

It took him about fifteen minutes to realize that Iwaizumi probably wasn’t having significant bowel issues. Well, fifteen minutes and a text from Makki that included a photo of himself, Mattsun, and Iwaizumi outside the restaurant. Makki and Mattsun looked elated and were pointing at a small window, which Oikawa could only assume was the restaurant’s bathroom window, while Iwaizumi wore an apologetic grin.

 

“Those bastards,” Oikawa muttered, pulling out his wallet so that he could go outside and kill them—assuming that the picture had been taken only a few moments ago and he wouldn’t have to scour the entire city to find them. It was a distinct possibility.

 

He dropped the money on the table and stormed out, not even bothering to wait for his change.

 

Oikawa heard Makki and Mattsun as soon as he walked outside. He glanced over to the side of the restaurant, where they were doubled over laughing. Iwaizumi gave him a sheepish look as Oikawa stomped over.

 

“You,” he seethed, not able to decide which one he should be angriest with. He finally settled on Iwaizumi, who was the only one capable of feeling shame and also looked especially ashamed of himself at the moment.

 

“I can’t believe you walked out on me!” he said, throwing his hands up.

 

“I think fell out would be the better word,” Mattsun managed as he continued to laugh.

 

“I would have expected it from those two,” Oikawa said, jabbing his thumb at the dynamic duo and ignoring Matsukawa’s comment, “but not you. What do you have to say for yourself?”

 

Iwaizumi let out a small laugh. He seemed to be somewhere between being amused by Oikawa’s reaction and feeling bad for abandoning him. He held up a wad of money.

 

“They bribed me,” he said, barely concealing a smile. Clearly he’d settled for amused.

 

“It was so worth it,” Makki said, high fiving Mattsun. “You should’ve seen him. He got stuck halfway, and then an old lady thought that he was robbing the place, and started hitting him with her purse. He dissolved into laughter all over again, and even Oikawa couldn’t keep himself from smiling. He managed to compose himself, though, and turned back to Iwaizumi.

 

He shook a finger. “I can’t believe you fell for that. And you say that I’m bad whenever I go along with one of their schemes.”

 

Iwaizumi shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t realize how small the window was. And it was supposed to be payback for the time that you switched my shorts out with a pair from the girls’ basketball team.”

 

OK, that was fair. It might not have been so bad if Oikawa hadn’t accidentally left Iwaizumi’s actual pair of shorts at home. And if the girls’ basketball team didn’t wear short-ish shorts. There hadn’t been a spare pair of shorts lying around, so Iwaizumi had been forced to practice in the basketball shorts, which everyone had later admitted he’d rocked.

 

“You jilted me. In front of an entire restaurant.” Not even his worst date had done that. He pouted slightly and Iwaizumi sighed.

 

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.” He held out the money to Oikawa. “Take it. You would have extorted it from me, anyway.” Oikawa took it without a word, deciding not to forgive Iwaizumi just yet.

 

Makki made a coughing noise that sounded suspiciously like ‘Whipped.’

 

Oikawa surveyed the money, mentally estimating the amount before folding the bills into his pocket. He couldn’t say he blamed Iwaizumi for taking them up on it. For 4,000 yen, he probably would have done the same. Regardless, he lifted his nose and looked away from Iwaizumi. “I’ll think about forgiving you,” he said primly, “but I make no promises.” He then turned on heel and started to walk away.

 

“Oh my god,” Mattsun wheezed, “it’s like watching a lovers’ spat.”

 

‘Don’t go, Babe,” Makki said, holding one hand out and clutching at his heart with the other. “I’ll do better next time!”

 

“It’ll never happen again, I promise!” Mattsun added.

 

“You’re the only one for me!”

 

“I’ll never look at another woman again!”

 

“Wait, should we say ‘woman’ or ‘man’?” Oikawa heard Makki ask.

 

“Oooh, good question. I think woman. That would have Oikawa questioning the orientation of his soulmate, forcing him to wonder if Iwaizumi will abandon him in favor of a heterosexual lifestyle.”

 

“Wrought with picket fences, minivans, doting wives, and hordes of children!”

 

“The horror, the horror!”

 

In spite of what they said, Iwaizumi was completely silent, which Oikawa found more than a little surprising. This was usually the part where Iwaizumi headbutted him, called him Shittykawa or Trashykawa for being ungrateful, and then snatched the money back.

 

He wasn’t wrong about the extortion part, though. Oikawa would have found a way to get Iwaizumi to share it with him. Paying for lunch had been one thing, but having to walk out alone had been a little embarrassing.

 

He heard footsteps behind him, and Oikawa turned, really, really hoping that he wasn’t about to get mugged in a back alley. If he was going to get robbed and/or beaten up, he’d really prefer that it be a little less cliché.

 

Instead of some desperate thief, though, he found himself face to face with Iwaizumi, who had apparently been following him the entire time.

 

“Stalking is creepy and rude and stalkerish, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa chided. He wasn’t half as mad as he’d pretended to be, and he was more than a little relieved that Iwaizumi had actually come after him. Being abandoned as a prank was one thing, but he would have been genuinely hurt if Iwaizumi had chosen Makki and Mattsun over him.

 

It was possessive and immature, but he always appreciated it when Iwaizumi picked him first. He had done the same thing when they had been younger and Oikawa had been slightly less athletic. No matter which sport they had been playing, Iwaizumi had always picked Oikawa for his team. There had been nothing that Oikawa had hated more than being picked last, and if Iwaizumi could prevent it from happening, then he did.

 

“Is there something that I can do for you?” he asked, propping one leg against the concrete wall and leaning back nonchalantly. “Planning to take the money back, hm?”

 

“I’m worried about you,” was all Iwaizumi said. Oikawa’s eyes widened slightly. This wasn’t what he had expected.

 

“Worried?” Oikawa gasped. Knowing that he wouldn’t be able to conceal his surprise, he tried channeling it in a different direction. “My, Iwa-chan, I never would have expected such a complex motive from you.”

 

“I can’t tell if you’re actually about it mad or not,” Iwaizumi admitted, ignoring Oikawa and going to the heart of the issue. “I feel bad about it either way, but … it seems like something more is going on. Something that you’re not telling me.” He rubbed the back of his head, a guilty look on his face. Oikawa instantly felt bad. It wasn’t very often that he kept something from Iwiazumi, but somehow he felt that disclosing his minor, totally-not-important sexuality crisis that seemed to be almost exclusively related to his best friend would be a mistake. There were some things that Iwaizumi was better off not knowing.

 

So Oikawa didn’t answer. As he tried to think of something to say, he instead stared intently at Iwaizumi’s face, which started to fall a little when Oikawa didn’t respond. Sad Iwaizumi was heartbreaking, so Oikawa’s brain went into overdrive.

 

“Were there pictures?” Oikawa demanded, immediately thinking back to the incident.

 

“Huh?”

 

“Were there pictures? Pictures of you climbing out of the window,” he said. God, if there were pictures of this, the whole thing would be worth it.

 

“I, um, yeah. Yeah, there were pictures,” Iwaizumi said, his face heating up a little. “Makki and Mattsun were outside when they texted me. They, uh, watched the whole thing.”

 

Oikawa immediately pulled out his phone, mumbling, “I need those pictures.” He wondered just how much it would cost him. They’d probably want the money they’d paid Iwaizumi at the very least. There would probably be something else, though. There always was. He knew that these would come at a high price.

 

Iwaizumi let out a groan. “I gave you the money. Can’t you be happy with that? I’m pretty sure that woman was about to call the police on me.”

 

Oikawa could only assume that he was referring to the woman who had assaulted him with a handbag. That paired with getting stuck, paired with Makki and Mattsun, paired with Oikawa’s reaction.… Iwaizumi really hadn’t had a good day so far. Maybe he ought to ease up on him.

 

Oikawa waved him away, though the motion was obviously playful. “I can’t be bought, Iwa-chan. This,” he said, gesturing at himself, “is not for sale.”

 

“Like anyone would want to buy that,” Iwaizumi snorted, making the same gesture, but at Oikawa’s body rather than his own. “The maintenance would cost more than the actual thing.”

 

Oikawa made a face. “Meanie.”

 

“Yeah, whatever,” Iwaizumi griped. “C’mon, let’s get back to Makki and Mattsun before they end up doing something that they’ll get arrested for.” He grabbed Oikawa’s wrist, then hesitated. “Unless you wanna go home. We can do that if you’re still upset.”

 

Oikawa shook his head and grinned. “That’s OK.” With his free hand, he pulled the money out of his pocket. “Actually, I was thinking that we could use some of this to buy creampuffs.”

 

Iwaizumi gave him a confused look. “What? Why? Neither of us like creampuffs.” He frowned at Oikawa. “Are you really going to reward those assholes?”

 

Oikawa smiled slyly. “Actually, I was thinking we could buy some and then stomp on them right in front of Makki. I want to see him cry.”

 

Iwaizumi rolled his eyes, but tightened his grip on Oikawa. “Yeah, let’s do that.” He grinned, and they headed back.

 

***

 

When he got home, Oikawa began to think back to the entire afternoon. Overall, it hadn’t been half bad. They had met up with Makki and Mattsun again, both of whom had actually seemed to feel sort of bad about what they had done—bad enough that they had texted Oikawa the pictures, which had led to Oikawa’s instant and total forgiveness. The pictures were priceless. They had even captured a few of Iwaizumi getting hit by a surprisingly small and fragile old woman. The next couple of pictures had been even cuter, though.

 

What Iwaizumi hadn’t told him was that the woman had been completely flustered and apologetic by what she had done, that she had insisted on giving Iwaizumi a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Iwaizumi, bright red and just as flustered as the woman, had knelt down on the ground to receive both the hug and kiss. A picture was worth a thousand words, and those pictures summed Iwaizumi up perfectly. Oikawa decided that he was going to print one of them off and frame them.

 

And then hide them in his closet where no one would find them, because he would be teased forever if anyone saw them. And if Iwaizumi saw them … well, Oikawa would probably never see them again. If there was one thing that Iwaizumi hated, it was people seeing his softer side.

 

Sighing happily, he flopped down on his bed. His thoughts quickly went in a different direction as he remembered his and Iwaizumi’s interactions at the restaurant and in the alleyway. Those were troubling.

 

Whatever was going on with him, whether it was some sort of sexual identity crisis or the emergence of a latent mental disorder (something that Iwaizumi had suggested multiple times throughout their lives), it was starting to seep through the cracks. He’d never been good at hiding things from Iwaizumi, but this…. It was of the upmost importance that Iwaizumi have absolutely no knowledge of his little problem.

 

He had to do something. Telling Iwaizumi, not telling Iwaizumi—regardless of the route that he took, if he kept this up, he was going to end up driving his friend away. He needed to figure out what was going on, and then get over it.

 

He scrubbed his face as he thought about it. Maybe he should date someone, a member of his fan club or one of the sporty girls. It had been awhile since he had gone out, and even if it was just a casual date or friends with benefits, it might do him some good to be with someone in a more intimate capacity.

 

Unlike Iwaizumi, who was a natural introvert, Oikawa needed people. He wasn’t any good on his own. It was possible that he just needed to be close to someone in a non-platonic way. He mentally scanned possible candidates, picking out a few girls whom he might mesh with. Sadly, none of them were half as appealing as Iwaizumi, but it was possible he was just going through a phase. Sometimes the things you wanted most were the ones that you couldn’t have.

 

What was that saying? The other side of the fence was always greener than the grass? It didn’t make any sense to him, but for whatever reason it made some people feel better about themselves.

 

It was addicting, really. Oikawa needed the approval of other people. He lived off of it, which was probably why he had an account on every social media platform that existed. This one had become a challenge, one that he had yet to beat. And while he should probably give up, he didn’t want to stop until people acknowledged that he was doing a good job. He excelled at everything he did. This couldn’t be the exception. Once he received the praise he so desperately needed, he would give it up for good. He wasn’t there just yet, though. Just a few more likes….

 

He sat up. It wasn’t like he was going to get there by just laying around. Plus he had a few practice matches and games that he needed to review. Their first practice match against Shiratorizawa was less than a month away. There was no way in hell he was going to give Ushiwaka the satisfaction of beating him.

 

With that in mind, he decided to review the new comments, then start writing again. So he opened his laptop and went to his bookmarks, which, at this point, probably contained a lot more porn than they should (he’d been doing research!), and went straight to the website.

 

 

 

thegrandqueen [5:07 AM]: first!

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [8:16 AM]: second!

 

oikawabae [10:19 AM]: @thegrandqueen not u2!!1!!!!!!!

 

oikawabae [10:22 AM]: ths maid me soooo sad :’(

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [11:43 AM]: 6th?? @thegrandmoderatr r we going by cmnt number or username?

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [11:43 AM]: oops @thegrandmoderator

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [11:44 AM]: shld we make cmnts editable?

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [11:45 AM]: @thegrandmoderator

 

ballsb4brawn [11:53 AM]: @mrsiwaizumihajime how about enabling spell check

 

iwaoiyaoi [12:26 PM]: angst Angst ANGST! i love it :D

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [1:12 PM]: @mrsiwaizumihajime good question. let’s go by username

 

settersdoitbetter [1:14 PM]: @iloveoikawa This was so sad, but still really good! I think you balanced the emotional turmoil quite well :) I would love to see Oikawa’s reasons for asking Iwaizumi to call him by his surname. Thanks for posting your beautiful writing!

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [1:15 PM]: @mrsiwaizumihajime nah, makes it harder to keep track of strikes

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [1:16 PM]: @ballsb4brawn we’re trying to teach our dear classmates how to spell without the help of a computer program

 

ballsb4brawn [2:09 PM]: @thegrandmoderator i think you’re just lazy

 

iwaoifangurl [2:21 PM]: this wuz so depressing. :(

 

iwasarms [2:36 PM]: ^ i agree

 

ballsb4brawn [3:34 PM]: @iwasarms i will pay you if you stop using ^

 

ewhyzoome [5:45 PM]: Noooooo i licked that they called eech other by there first names!!!!!

 

oikawabae [5:51 PM]: @ewhyzoome i no r8?????!!!!!!

 

iwaoi4ever [6:06 PM]: Do you think they ever actually called each other by their first names? @iloveiwachan I have a little bit of trouble seeing Oikawa telling Iwaizumi that he doesn’t want Iwaizumi to call him by his first name (I feel like it would be the other way around), but like @settersdoit better said, I like the turmoil that comes with it. Poor Iwaizumi.... I hope he fights back!

 

iloveoikawa [7:22 PM]: Like everyone else said, this was really sad. I can see Oikawa being upset about bringing it up and asking for it. I hope you come back to this again later!

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [9:23 PM]: @ballsb4brawn us? never ;)

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [9:24 PM]: @iwaoi4ever that one is marked as speculative, but likely. like you said, Iwaizumi was probably the one who brought it up

 

 

 

Oikawa scanned the comments, smiling at a few of them, though he wasn’t exactly happy that his likes were only up to 16. How many users were active on this site? He decided to check a few stories by that one writer he’d liked. Once he finally found their profile, he checked a couple of their stories.

 

157 likes. Their best story had 157 likes. Their most recent story had a little over 100, which meant that Oikawa was waaaaaay behind. He’d kind of hoped that there would only be around 30 active users max. It would have made him feel a lot better about himself. But this … this didn’t exactly make him feel good.

 

He let out a small groan. It was at least gratifying to know that so many people were invested in both him and Iwaizumi, but still. He let out another groan as the thought passed through his mind.

 

No, that was _not_ good. It would be good if there had been a fan site dedicated to his, and possibly Iwaizumi’s, volleyball career. That would be good. But Oikawa wasn’t ever going to be with Iwaizumi, so this was basically a website dedicated to something that would never, ever, happen. What was the good in that?

 

He closed his browser and opened up a new document. He’d keep going, but only because he didn’t want to leave something half finished. That wasn’t how he did life. He’d finish this, move on, and forget that he had ever found this site. That was how this was going to go.

 

Just the same, the childhood motif was beginning to get old. He really should stick with a safe subject, but he wanted to do something more with it. This was getting boring. He needed to add some spice to it. Spice that was completely fictional and would never happen and that he was more than OK with never happening.

 

Yeah, that was all. It was all fiction. The feelings, the relationships, all of it. He wasn’t going to let himself feel something that wasn’t real.

 

What he was feeling wasn’t real.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally done! If you see any errors, please let me know :D


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe it's taken me this long to update :( I'm sorry for the delay!!! I finished most of this about a month ago, but the past month has been miserable, and I've been really emotionally and mentally drained, so it took me forever to finish editing this. I'm sorry if it's a little disjointed. I'm planning to go back in later and edit it some more. Thank you guys so much for your patience <3

**Ace in the Hole**

Chapter 4

Author: iloveiwachan

 

It was the last day of middle school and Hajime was feeling sick to his stomach. Not because he had eaten something gross (though normally that would be a distinct possibility). No, he was feeling sick because he and Tooru were about to go to high school.

 

Hajime didn’t adapt well to change. It probably had something to do with the fact that he had evolved a little slower than the rest of humanity and was still playing catch up, but regardless of the reason, he was worried.

 

Even though Tooru had been popular and perfect all throughout elementary and middle school, he had somehow become even more popular towards the end of middle school. He was surrounded by girls who wanted his attention almost as much as Hajime wanted his attention. 

 

But never as much. No one could ever want Tooru’s attention more than Hajime did. 

 

Hajime didn’t know that, though. You see, Hajime, being a creature that relied more on brawn than brains (as he had very few), was very out of touch with his emotions. Which was why it had taken him so long to realize that he was in love with Tooru, and had been for a very long time. 

 

Under Tooru’s influence, though, he had been slowly developing emotions—emotions more complex than anger and irritation. These emotions were confusing. Hajime wasn’t very good at multitasking, so simultaneously developing emotions and figuring them out was really difficult for him. 

 

Since he was still a little confused, though, he did what he instinctively did when he was confused: he glared at the world (Hajime was confused a lot).

 

“Iwa-chaaaaaan!” Tooru yelled happily as he broke away from the girls. Hajime glanced over to see Tooru walking, quite suavely, towards him.  

 

“Whaddya want, Shittykawa?” he asked grumpily, hoping that it hid his jealousy and unease. There was a slight ache in his heart as he said the words, because only a few moments before, he’d heard a girl call Tooru by his given name. It didn’t seem fair that she was allowed to but he wasn’t. 

 

Was there something wrong with him? He wondered. Well, aside from the obvious, of course. Being a caveman among fully developed humans was a feat in and of itself, and some people might consider that ‘something wrong,’ though Tooru, of course, was too nice to say anything about it.

 

But still, even that didn’t explain why Tooru would allow some people to call him by his given name while explicitly forbidding Hajime from doing the same. Maybe Tooru was finally pushing him away and finding new friends. It made the prospect of high school even scarier. 

 

“Iwa-chan, our parents want us to take pictures over there,” Tooru said, gesturing to where their parents were standing. There were several of their classmates—all girls—standing over there, as well, which made Hajime balk. 

 

In the midst of such prettiness, Hajime would stand out like a very sore, and very metaphorical, thumb. (Which was a very weird expression, he decided. They ought to say that sore thumbs stood out like unattractive people did, or something like that).

 

After much urging from Tooru, who was very good at persuasion (and seduction, though he didn’t use that very often—or at all—since he was quite the gentleman and didn’t reduce himself to such vulgar means), he walked in the direction in which Tooru had been pointing.

 

He stood to the edge of the picture, but Tooru quickly pulled him front and center, which Hajime didn’t like very much, since being the center of attention was a scary and dangerous thing that he usually left to Tooru’s expertise. He did like being pulled next to Tooru, though, so he plastered on what might, to the unpracticed eye, be mistaken for a smile.

 

Hajime breathed a sigh of relief after several pictures had been taken, the girls had dispersed, and the camera, which must have been quite sturdy and reliable, hadn’t broken. Before he could walk away with his parents, though, both sets of parents declared that Tooru and Hajime should take a picture together—just the two of them. 

 

Tooru quickly complied, throwing up what Hajime thought (and was completely right about) was an adorable peace sign as he smiled for the camera. Hajime frowned a little as he did, feeling self conscious now that it was just him and Tooru. His heart always jumped when he was around Tooru, especially in situations like this. 

 

He decided that he was going to ask his parents for one of the photos later. He’d frame it, hide it in the back of his closet, and then, when he was older, hang it on his wall and proudly show it to his humanoid grandchildren.

 

As their parents walked away to talk with a few of the other parents, Hajime and Tooru remained rooted in the same place, side by side—just as they had throughout their entire lives. 

 

“We’re gonna stay friends, right?” Hajime’s voice wavered a little as he thought about how dark his life would be without the radiant Tooru. 

 

“Of course, Iwa-chan,” Tooru said, sounding, though he wasn’t really, confused by Hajime’s words. “Why wouldn’t we be?”

 

“Well, it’s just that you have so many new friends….” Hajime started, but then his face fell, as he was at a loss for a vocabulary. 

 

Tooru pulled him him into a reassuring hug. “No one could replace you, Iwa-chan,” he said reassuringly. “You’re special, and no one could ever take your place.” 

 

He truly was special, in ways that he might never realize (and not just in ways related to his ‘special’ DNA). 

 

And there, in the midst of Tooru’s warm and strong arms, Hajime felt loved. And at that moment, he realized that he was in love (which was impossible to avoid since it was impossible not to love Tooru, but it had taken Hajime a little longer to realize it since he had only recently developed complex emotions).

 

***

 

Oikawa felt disgusting after he finished. Gods, he knew he was being an asshole, but somehow he couldn’t stop the insults and write Iwaizumi the way that he actually saw him. It was almost as if doing so would make this—whatever he was feeling—so much harder to deal with. He couldn’t say how smart and beautiful and perfect Iwaizumi was, because it fucking hurt to feel that way and know that it would never be reciprocated.

 

He wished this was the way it had gone. If it had been like this, then maybe he would know for sure where Iwaizumi was going to college, because Iwaizumi would actually want to follow him to the same school. But that hadn’t happened, so Oikawa was still left with a terrifying uncertainty.

 

He had tried not to think about it too much, because he didn’t even want to consider the possibility that he and Iwaizumi might be going to different universities. Iwaizumi grounded him, and he wasn’t sure what he would do without his friend’s solid presence. 

 

Oikawa had applied to what felt like every university in Japan. If Iwaizumi had even shown a slight interest in a college, then had Oikawa immediately applied to that college—just in case that was the one that Iwaizumi decided to go to. Maybe it was a little obsessive, but he couldn’t cope with the idea that they might go to separate universities.

 

It had been nice back then—knowing exactly which middle and high schools they’d be going to. There hadn’t been as many choices then, and while they’d both had some say as to which high school they’d go to, their parents had played a much greater role in determining where they’d go (not that Oikawa wouldn’t have argued until he was blue in the face if the’d tried to get him to go to a high school that Iwaizumi wasn’t planning to go to). 

 

He still had a few months left until acceptance letters would start coming in and he would have to make a decision. Still, Oikawa liked to know some things preemptively. And while he was good at improvising, he didn’t want to leave this to chance. It was too important. 

 

Oikawa decided that tomorrow he would bite the bullet and ask Iwaizumi where he was planning to go. This had been eating at him for awhile, and if he didn’t ask soon, he had a feeling that would become a new recurring theme in his story. 

 

With that in mind, he snuggled into his bed, trying to ignore the sense of desperation that had seeped into his bones. No matter what, he wanted to stay close to his Iwa-chan. He wanted to be with him.

 

In a heterosexual way, of course, because he couldn’t possibly handle the thought of it in any other way.

 

***

 

“Iwa-chan, where are you going to college?” Oikawa asked, feigning nonchalance. They were on their way to meet Makki and Mattsun for lunch, and Oikawa figured it would be the best time to pop the question. 

 

He hummed as they walked, trying to dispel the nervous energy as he waited for Iwaizumi’s reply. He didn’t have to wait long, because his friend almost immediately turned to him with a deadpan and said, “The one furthest away from you.” He looked Oikawa straight in the eye as he said it, which only intensified the sting of his words.

 

Forcing himself to breath evenly, Oikawa let out a patronizing sigh that, he hoped, masked the sick feeling in his stomach. “Tsk tsk, Iwa-chan,” he said sternly. “We both know you can’t live without me.”

 

He knew that Iwaizumi’s answer was, at least in part, a joke, but this was important to him and he wanted to be taken seriously. If Iwaizumi didn’t want to go to the same university, then, in spite of how disappointing it would be, Oikawa wanted to know. It would give him time to detach before they went their separate ways.

 

Iwaizumi snorted. “I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around,” he said, rolling his eyes a little. After a beat, a small grin crossed his face and he laced his hands behind his head. “‘bout time I get a break from you.” 

 

Oikawa’s face fell, but he hid it by draping himself over Iwaizumi. His friend stumbled a step, not having expected the extra weight that had collapsed against his back. He tried to shift away, but the movement only resulted in Oikawa clinging to him tightly.

 

“But—but who will help you with confusing concepts like numbers, talking to girls, and personal hygiene?” Oikawa asked. He let out a gasp, which he choked on as Iwaizumi jabbed him in the side, forcing him away. “Iwa-chan,” he said, after he’d recovered from his coughing fit. “don’t tell me you’ve decided not to go to college?” 

 

He gave his friend a perturbed look, which Iwaizumi returned with a dark glare. They both opened their mouths—Oikawa to continue his accusations and Iwaizumi to argue—but Makki’s voice interrupted them.

 

“What are you guys fighting about this time?” he called as he and Matsukawa walked towards them from the opposite end of the hall. Oikawa vaguely heard Mattsun say something about Iwaizumi ‘Looking pissier than usual.’

 

Oikawa, intent on getting in the last word before Iwaizumi hit him or yelled at him, all but dashed down the hall, waving his hands wildly and yelling, “Iwa-chan isn’t going to college!”

 

“What?” Matsukawa asked, raising a bushy brow. His tone said that he clearly didn’t believe a word that Oikawa had said, but a lazy smile crossed his face and his eyes drifted towards Hanamaki, as if he was giving his friend permission take charge this time. Oikawa swore that they took turns antagonizing the world.

 

“Iwaizumi, don’t do it,” Makki said quickly, closing the short distance between them, grabbing hold of Iwaizumi’s shoulders, and shaking him lightly. “You’re too young to give your future up for Oikawa. Don’t settle and become his housewife. You have so much to offer the world. Don’t waste it on him.” He let out a fake sob as he nodded towards Oikawa, who made a face at him. 

 

“What the fuck?” Iwaizumi snapped. “I never said anything about not going to college,” he said loudly. “I just said that I wasn’t going to college anywhere near Oikawa’s.”

 

His voice had risen in volume, and by the time he had finished, every girl, along with several guys, in a 20-meter radius had gone quiet. A few horrified gazes zeroed in on Oikawa and Iwaizumi.

 

Makki and Mattsun didn’t look surprised at all, but both Oikawa and Iwaizumi froze. Iwaizumi himself looked horribly confused, and he glanced around, checking to see if something terrible had happened, fully unaware that the terrible thing was the fact that he was threatening to go to a different university.

 

Less than a moment after it had happened, everyone went back to what they had been doing, though some wore disappointed expressions, others shuffled along with slumped shoulders, and one girl ran away sobbing.

 

“That was weird as fuck,” Iwaizumi muttered, his gaze shifting around the hallway as though he was still searching for some clue as to what had happened. He looked a little lost. Oikawa tried to mimic the expression, though he had already figured out what had happened. He stayed quiet as he tried to not show his own disappointment.

 

“Oh, that?” Mattsun said with a bored expression. “That happens every day at—” he glanced down at his watch “—12:06 PM. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed.”

 

Makki nodded in agreement. “Really Iwaizumi, you should pay better attention to your surroundings. Who knows how much you’ve missed over the years.” His eyes flickered towards Oikawa, who gave him a hard stare, daring him to say more. He kept his mouth shut, though, choosing to let Iwaizumi say his piece, instead.

 

“If I wasn’t stuck babysitting this asshole,” Iwaizumi said, jerking a thumb towards Oikawa, “then I’m sure I’d never miss a thing.” He threw his hands up in the air. “Either way, I know that’s not normal.” He gave Makki and Mattsun a suspicious look. “Did you pay people to do that?”

 

“Nah,” Makki said. “We can come up with better stuff than that.” He started walking, and the others followed closely behind.

 

“Where do you get all the money to bribe people to do shit like that, anyway?” Iwaizumi asked, curious and not entirely convinced that the whole thing hadn’t been the two’s doing.

 

Makki and Mattsun just grinned at each other. “Blackmail,” they said at the same time, then high fived each other.

 

“It’s like we’re on the same wavelength,” Mattsun said happily. 

 

Makki nodded. “We were made for each other,” he agreed.

 

“You guys are terrifying,” Iwaizumi said as he shook his head, disgusted.

 

“Just accept it, Iwaizumi. Your life would be lacking without us.”

 

“You’re starting to sound like Oikawa,” Iwaizumi grumbled. Oikawa played his part and let out a offended huff. He didn’t argue as he usually would, though. A part of him was still stuck on what Iwaizumi had said, and he replayed his friend’s declaration over and over again in his head.

 

This time it was Makki who gave him a concerned look. He fell into step beside Oikawa, letting Matsukawa distract Iwaizumi with talk of some new comic.

 

“You feeling OK?” he asked softly. “Um, that website isn’t still bothering you, is it?” He didn’t have to elaborate on what website ‘that website’ was. For all his and Mattsun’s ridiculousness, they were perceptive. It was probably why they were so good at their pranks. Just like Oikawa, they knew what got under people’s skin. Hypocritical as it was, he was grateful they didn’t use it as he did.

 

“Not at all,” he replied. “Out of sight, out of mind, right?” he said, tapping his head with a finger and winking. “In fact, I had almost forgotten about it.”

 

“Right,” Makki said. He obviously wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t say any more about it, choosing instead to join in on Iwaizumi and Matsukawa’s conversation, leaving Oikawa to his own thoughts.   
  


 

***

 

Oikawa didn’t talk much during lunch. He stabbed at his food, tossing bits of it off the edge of the roof when he thought no one was looking. Iwaizumi, fortunately, was too preoccupied with his own lunch—which Oikawa had oh so politely sabotaged that morning—to notice. And Makki and Mattsun were too preoccupied with Iwaizumi’s preoccupation to turn their attention to Oikawa. They seemed to know that Oikawa needed his space.

 

When the bell rang, signalling that lunch had ended. Makki and Mattsun quickly said their goodbyes, saying something about catching Yahaba before class as they dashed away. Oikawa trudged after them, but before he could reach for the handle of the door, he was yanked back by his collar. 

 

“Y’know I was kidding back there, right?” Iwaizumi said, his gaze burning into Oikawa. 

 

“No you weren’t, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa replied with a weary sigh. “We all know you hate tomatoes. I’ll stop trying to put them in your lunch,” he said, referencing the the fact that he had brought extra tomato slices the past few days and had artfully snuck them into Iwaizumi’s lunch, mixing them in so perfectly that Iwaizumi couldn’t get through a meal without biting into at least one.

 

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Jackass,” Iwaizumi said with a frustrated growl. “And I meant what I said about that. It really is a waste of money. You’re getting to be like Makki and Mattsun. You guys are all rubbing off on each other in the worst way possible,” he griped.

 

“OK,” Oikawa said dully, turning back towards the door as the second bell rang.

 

Iwaizumi grabbed him again, this time yanking harder and nearly pulling Oikawa against his chest. Almost as soon as he did, he shifted back a step, maintaining a gap of space between himself and Oikawa. Just the same, Oikawa’s breath hitched a little, his body tingling after having come in contact with Iwaizumi’s.

 

“I’m talking about going to separate universities!” Iwaizumi said quickly. “I never planned on going to a different university, or at least going to one that was more than an hour away.” He swallowed hard as his eyes slid away from Oikawa’s face. “I mean, unless you’d rather I didn’t,” he said softly. “I can understand if you want to play with a new team or hang out with new people or something. I just thought….”

 

A look of uncertainty crossed his face. It was unusual, to say the least. Iwaizumi wasn’t cocky like Oikawa, but he exuded a sense of confidence that was stronger than Oikawa’s own egotistical persona, which was simply a cover for his own insecurities. Iwaizumi was strong, sturdy. This behavior wasn’t like him.

 

“Wait, you thought I wouldn’t want to go to the same school as you?” Oikawa asked, confused, though relief coursed through him. “We’ve been together forever. And besides,” he added, jabbing a finger at Iwaizumi, “you’re the one who keeps saying that you can’t wait to get rid of me.”

 

Iwaizumi let out a laugh, an honest smile crossing his face as he did. “I can’t wait to get away from you,” he said, chuckling to himself. “And believe me, I’ll spend every day dodging you, ignoring your texts, and denying that I know you.” He flicked Oikawa’s ear lightly. “But I’ll also drag you out of the gym, make sure that you actually eat and sleep, and do my best to keep you from being a general nuisance. The world isn’t ready for that yet,” he said, giving his friend a crooked grin, which made Oikawa’s heart flutter.

 

Oikawa gave up. It was useless pretending anymore. He was, without a doubt, in love with his best friend—and probably had been for a while. Even if it had been before, his sexuality was no longer gay, straight, or bisexual. His sexual orientation was Iwaizumi. That was the only person he wanted, and he was beginning to suspect that Iwaizumi was the only person he would ever want.

 

“Iwa-chan is so mean,” Oikawa said, making a pouty face and hoping that Iwaizumi hadn’t noticed the terrifying admission he’d made to himself.

 

“Psh, I am way nicer to you than you deserve,” he said, reaching past Oikawa and grabbing the door handle. He slipped through the door, artfully avoiding any contact with the brunet, and closed it before Oikawa could follow him. Oikawa let out an offended squeak as he opened the door and followed after his friend.

 

“Rude!” he yelled after Iwaizumi, who was already halfway down the stairs.

 

Iwaizumi’s booming laughter echoed through the small stairwell. Oikawa couldn’t help but laugh in response as he hurried behind his friend. As he did, the grin on his face slipped into a more resigned expression.

 

Yep, he was definitely in love. And now he had to figure out what he was going to do about it. Telling Iwaizumi was out of the question. His friend was pretty much the personification of masculinity, a sharp contrast to Oikawa’s soft looks and diva-like personality. There was no way Iwaizumi wasn’t heterosexual. 

 

Sure, he didn’t date or talk about girls much, but Oikawa most certainly had never seen Iwaizumi look at another guy in a way that could even remotely be confused for anything other than platonic. And even if he had, what were the odds that he would be interested in being with his obnoxious best friend?

 

It sucked, Oikawa thought. He might as well resign himself to an eternally single life filled with too many cats and pounds of milk bread as he tried to eat away his feelings.

 

Ignoring the final bell, he moved slowly through the hall. Iwaizumi had already headed to his own classroom, which was in the opposite direction of Oikawa’s next class. For once, he was grateful for that fact. He was on the verge of cracking, and he didn’t want Iwaizumi to be anywhere near him when he finally shattered.

 

At this rate, it wouldn’t be much longer. It seemed that falling for his friend and falling apart went hand in hand. This time Iwaizumi couldn’t possibly be there to hold him together. As badly as he wanted Iwaizumi, he couldn’t tell his friend how he felt. What they had right now was too important, and Oikawa would rather destroy himself than destroy their friendship. 

 

His previous happiness at Iwaizumi’s words was slowly weighed down by the bitter knowledge that no matter how close he was to Iwaizumi, it would never quite be close enough.

 

***

 

Oikawa was running late for practice. While on his way to the gym, he’d been stopped by a couple of girls, several of whom had wanted to give him bags of sweets. Against his better judgement, but unable to resist, he had sampled a few in front of them. It was polite, after all, and he always praised the gifts, regardless of how awful some of them were. 

 

Scurrying along to the gym, he had prayed that he wouldn’t throw up during practice. Even though Iwaizumi always took care of him when he was sick, he had a habit of yelling at Oikawa whenever he came down with something. It was a hundred times worse when Oikawa had brought it on himself—and Iwaizumi  _ always _ knew when that was the case.

 

He managed to sneak in the locker room without seeing Iwaizumi. When he stepped back into the gym, though, the first thing that he saw was half the team at the far end of the court peering out the gym doors. The only people who weren’t in the group were Kyoutani and Kunimi, which wasn’t really surprising at all.

 

He glanced around for Iwaizumi, who would normally be yelling at everyone to stop playing around, but his friend was nowhere to be seen. He moved cautiously towards his teammates, glancing around for any signs of Iwaizumi, who was probably going to spike a volleyball to Oikawa’s face for not being on time. 

 

“What’s going on?” he asked, aiming his question at Kunimi, who was more likely to actually respond to him.

 

Kunimi shrugged. “They’re spying on Iwaizumi, I think,” he said, and Oikawa raised a brow.

 

“Why?” He turned back to where the rest of the team was standing and wondered what the ace could have done to attract everyone’s attention. It wasn’t as though 75% of the team wasn’t in constant awe of Iwaizumi, but that awe was usually directed towards him when he was  _ on _ the court.

 

“Some girl dragged him out there,” Kyoutani muttered irritably. 

 

That immediately caught Oikawa’s attention, and without a word, he dashed to the opposite side of the court, unwilling to pass up a chance to see Iwaizumi reject a confession. 

 

In spite of what everyone thought, Iwaizumi was surprisingly good at turning people down (possibly even better than Oikawa, though he would never admit that). He didn’t receive confessions often, but when he did, the girl who had confessed always walked away with a disappointed look, but also with a small smile on her face.

 

In the past when he had asked Iwaizumi what he had said to the girls, Iwaizumi had just shrugged and said, “The truth. I tell them that they’re great girls and that I really like them as people, but I have other commitments and I don’t think it would be fair to date them. They deserve someone who can completely commit to them.”

 

Short, sweet, and honest—just like Iwaizumi. He admired his friend for it. Oikawa hated disappointing people, so he usually told them he couldn’t date them at the time, leaving the possibility that he might date them in the future. To anyone who didn’t know him, it appeared as though Oikawa was stringing the girls along, but really he just hated to see them sad. Somehow saying ‘not yet’ didn’t feel as bad as giving them a flat out no, though it always caused problems for him later on.

 

He pressed himself against the the small crowd of fellow teammates, doing his best to get a glimpse at the girl who had pulled Iwaizumi aside and was now standing nervously in front of him.

 

Oikawa recognized her immediately. She was in Iwaizumi’s class, and on several occasions he had noticed her looking at his friend, which had instantly put her on Oikawa’s radar. His lip curled as he realized that she was short and cute—exactly what Iwaizumi liked. If he remembered correctly, though, she had an annoying laugh, which meant that Iwaizumi had already crossed her off his list. That was how it worked, right?

 

Just as he had hoped and expected, Iwaizumi gave her an apologetic look, which was a sure sign that he had turned her down. What he hadn’t expected was the light pink blush that had colored Iwaizumi’s face as the girl had stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. She seemed to whisper something in his ear before darting away.

 

And with that, the rest of the team immediately returned to practice, not wanting to deal with any rage that Iwaizumi might express if he found them spying on the intimate moment. He could hear them whispering to each other about the kiss, speculating whether or not Iwaizumi had actually turned her down.

 

Oikawa stood there for a moment, watching Iwaizumi, who was staring off into the distance as he touched his cheek. There was a considering look on his face that made Oikawa feel sick to his stomach. Somehow he doubted it was because of all the sweets he’d eaten. 

 

He swallowed hard as he slipped back into the gym. Any happiness that he might have felt after his conversation with Iwaizumi at lunch had completely dissipated, leaving him hollow.

 

Less than a minute later, Iwaizumi walked into the gym. He chewed on his lip slightly, but otherwise acted normally. Just the same, Oikawa watched him closely. Like the rest of the team, he wasn’t 100% sure whether Iwaizumi had said no.

 

“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa called. “So glad you could finally join us. If you continue being late, then I’m going to have to make you run extra laps,” he teased, slinging his arm around the ace as he joined the rest of them.

 

Iwaizumi shrugged his arm off, and Oikawa felt a sting of pain in his chest, feeling a little rejected himself. Iwaizumi hadn’t shoved the girl away…. 

 

“Idiot,” he snapped, “you’re the one who’s late. 

 

“Oh?” Oikawa said, raising a brow. “How would you know? And just what were you doing outside?” he asked, pretending he didn’t know exactly what had happened.

 

“Nothing,” Iwaizumi said. “C’mon,” he said a little louder, glancing around at everyone, “let’s get warmed up.”

 

He began the warm up at a brutal pace that was sure to exhaust everyone before practice had even begun. It was a sure sign that he didn’t want anyone asking what had happened. And sure enough, he effectively shut down any questions that might have been aimed his way.

 

If Oikawa was going to get the truth out of Iwaizumi, then he was going to have to wait.

 

***

 

“I heard Iwa-chan got a confession today,” Oikawa said, winking at his friend as they walked home after practice. 

 

“Yeah,” Iwaizumi grunted. As usual, he didn’t bother elaborating, forcing Oikawa to pursue the subject.

 

“Sooooo,” Oikawa drawled, leaning against Iwaizumi, “how did it go? Did you scare her with your ugly face and make her cry?”

 

“I knew you were gonna ask that,” Iwaizumi groaned. “Just because you share every single detail of your love life with the world doesn’t mean that the rest of us want to.”

 

“But Iwa-chaaaaaan,” Oikawa whined, “we’re supposed to be best friends. Best friends are supposed to share that with each other.” He gave the ace his best puppy-dog eyes, and Iwaizumi let out a sigh.

 

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” he finally relented. “She gave me a letter, told me she liked me, I told her I was too busy to date, and then she left.” He glanced over at Oikawa. “Probably not too different than the ones you get.”

 

“Hardly,” Oikawa sniffed haughtily. They were quiet for a moment before he ventured, “So nothing else happened? You just turned her down and she walked away?”

 

“Uh, yeah?” Iwaizumi said, giving Oikawa a strange look. “What else would’ve happened? I don’t make them cry like you do.”

 

“She was probably just relieved that she wouldn’t be stuck with a brute of a boyfriend,” he replied, then shoved his hands in his pockets and stared ahead at the sky, trying not to let Iwaizumi see the hurt he’d felt when his friend had lied to him. 

 

Have you ever considered just going out with someone? “ he asked a moment later, regretting each word as he spoke. “I mean, you don’t have to actually date one of them. You could just go out casually.”

 

Oikawa wanted to hit himself. What was he doing? It was like he was trying to sabotage himself at this point. He had just accepted that he was in love with his best friend, and now he was practically trying to get his friend to go out with someone else?

 

Iwaizumi gave him a weird look. “Why would I do that?” he asked. “It seems kinda mean to lead someone on like that.”

 

“It’s not leading them on if you make it clear ahead of time,” Oikawa argued. “Just find a girl you like and ask her if she wants to be friends with benefits or something.”

 

“Thanks, but I’m good,” Iwaizumi said blandly. He seemed almost disgusted by the idea.

 

“Why not?” Oikawa asked, cocking his head to the side. After a moment, a slow grin spread across his face. “Could it be,” he said slowly as he looked at Iwaizumi with innocent eyes, “that Iwa-chan doesn’t know how to seduce someone?”

 

Iwaizumi gave him a sidelong glance. “Like I’d ever need to do that,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re the only one who does stupid shit like that.

 

Choosing to ignore his comment, Oikawa grinned. It was almost impossible to imagine Iwaizumi acting seductive. In fact, he wasn’t even sure that he’d seen his friend flirt with anyone, much less try to seduce them. With that in mind, he had an idea.

 

“Iwa-chan,” he said, hopping up and down excitedly, “seduce me! I wanna see how bad you are at it! I can give you tips afterward,” he added, as though that would add appeal.

 

“What?” Iwaizumi asked, startled. He put an extra step of space between them. “No! Hell no!”

 

Oikawa grabbed Iwaizumi, pulling him against his side as the other boy protested. “It would be a very educational learning experience,” he said as he gestured towards the horizon. “Just think of all the embarrassment you would save yourself later on.”

 

Iwaizumi shoved Oikawa away, then grabbed his arm, twisted it behind his back, and then held it there for a moment as Oikawa squawked in protest. After a second, he let go and started walking again.

 

“Nope,” was all he said, not even bothering to look at Oikawa, who was rubbing his shoulder and mumbling ‘Meanie’ under his breath. 

 

When he realized that Iwaizumi wasn’t going to wait for him, he ran after his friend, yelling, “Pleeeeeeease!”

 

“No.”

 

“Pleeeeeeeeeease!”

 

“No!”

 

“But Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whined, “I’m just trying to help.

 

“You’re not going to shut up about this, are you?” Iwaizumi said, irritated. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb, and Oikawa could see the throbbing vein in his forehead, a sure sign that Iwaizumi was ready to snap. This was the point that any sane person would shut up, but Oikawa wasn’t about to drop the subject. He was enjoying this too much.

 

“Nope!” Oikawa said cheerfully, fully prepared to argue a little more. Surprisingly,  this was getting his mind off of other things—like Iwaizumi kissing some faceless girl. 

 

Iwaizumi audibly ground his teeth. “You’re really fucking awful, you know that?” 

 

That was the only warning he got before Iwaizumi slammed him against a building’s wall, pinning him against it with both arms. Oikawa froze, not really sure what had just happened. He let out a gulp, then ventured a glance at the dark-haired boy who now had him caged.

 

“Iwa-chan?” he said nervously, wondering if this time Iwaizumi was finally going to follow through with his threats and actually kill Oikawa. 

 

Iwaizumi’s normally green eyes were dark. He had fixed Oikawa with an intense stare, and when the brunet tried to look away, he moved his own head so that Oikawa couldn’t escape his gaze. Gods, he really was going to die this time. He started to shrink away, but then something unexpected happened.

 

“Hey,” Iwaizumi said, voice low and practically dripping with lust. “I really like you.” He started to lean even closer to Oikawa, and as he did, his lips brushed against the setter’s ear. “Go out with me?” he whispered,” his breath tickling Oikawa’s skin.

 

Oikawa’s legs felt like jelly, and it took every ounce of his strength to keep from melting into the ground. Anything that he might have said was swallowed up as he stared into Iwaizumi’s dilated pupils, which had been blown so wide that Oikawa might have, had he not known that this was a joke, thought that Iwaizumi was actually attracted to him.

 

Before he could do anything, Iwaizumi shoved himself away from the wall (and Oikawa) and crossed his arms. 

 

“That good enough?” he asked with a small smirk, seeming pleased by the reaction he’d gotten out of Oikawa. Underneath that smirk, though, was something that Oikawa couldn’t quite read. He seemed almost … nervous? That wasn’t exactly it, but it was certainly something along those lines. Regardless, Oikawa wasn’t mentally capable of reading further into it at the moment.

 

“Yeah,” Oikawa squeaked. He’d finally found his legs, but was still bracing himself against the wall. A small shiver went through his body, but he attributed it to the loss of Iwaizumi’s body heat. His friend was like a walking furnace. 

 

He cleared his throat. “Yeah, that was … OK,” he amended, and Iwaizumi’s eyebrows shot up.

 

“Wait, what?” he started, but Oikawa interrupted him.

 

“It could definitely be better, though,” he asserted. “Solid six out of ten. I would definitely practice some more before trying it out for real.” After saying it, he backtracked a little. “Not on girls, of course,” he said, eyes flickering to Iwaizumi’s face, which was marked by incredulity. “But definitely practice more on someone.”  _ Like me _ , he wanted to add, but bit his tongue instead.

 

“So you want me to practice on Makki and Mattsun, or someone on the team?” he asked. He shook his head, then flicked Oikawa’s forehead. “You’re so weird,” he said, ignoring Oikawa’s overexaggerated cry of pain. He grabbed Oikawa’s wrist, then hauled him away from the wall and back in the direction they’d initially been heading.

 

“C’mon, let’s get home.” He glanced at the sky, which was rapidly darkening. “It’s getting late and I’m hungry.”

 

“Well, maybe not Makki and Mattsun,” Oikawa said, refusing to drop the subject. “But maybe Kindaichi—or Mad Dog-chan!” He grinned at the idea of Iwaizumi trying that move on Kyoutani. That grin faded a little the more as he thought about it. If it were Oikawa, he’d end up in a body cast in three seconds flat. But if Iwaizumi tried it … Well, Oikawa wasn’t entirely sure how it would go.

 

“You want me to try to seduce Kyoutani?” Iwaizumi said, giving Oikawa his best ‘are you insane?’ look. “That wouldn’t end well for anyone. One of us would end up breaking the other’s face. And Kindaichi? The poor kid’s head would explode!”

 

Oikawa let out a snort at that. “Yeah, probably,” he said with a chuckle. 

 

“You’re a fucking sadist,” Iwaizumi muttered. 

 

“Nope, just a good captain trying to help his best friend out,” he said, feigning happiness. Sadist? Masochist was more like it. Though he would pay to see Iwaizumi ask Kyoutani out. Not for real, of course. But as a joke, it would be hilarious. 

 

“Asshole,” Iwaizumi shot back, then covered his eyes as Oikawa pulled his eyelid down and stuck his tongue out. “What are you, twelve?”

 

“Out of ten? Yes,” Oikawa answered. Iwaizumi groaned.

 

“Get back to me with something more original,” he said, shoving Oikawa towards the small cobblestone path that led to his house. Oikawa blinked, a little surprised that they were home already. The walk had gone by faster than he’d realized.

 

“Bye, Iwa-chan!” he chirped, barely registering Iwaizumi’s ‘Later,’ as he headed to his own home. Oikawa stared after him for a moment before shaking his head as he opened the gate to his yard.

 

Oikawa walked into a dark house, only remembering right then that his parents were visiting friends for the next few days. Flipping on the lights, he briefly considered asking Iwaizumi to stay over. He hated being alone. His childhood fear of the dark had never completely gone away, and even though he no longer slept with a nightlight, he had never taken down the glow-in-the-dark stars that spotted his ceiling. 

 

As juvenile as they might be, he still liked them and they still brought him some comfort. Plus Iwaizumi had bought them for his eighth birthday, cementing Oikawa’s decision to keep them forever. 

 

Oikawa discarded the idea of calling Iwaizumi less than a second after it had popped into his head. He was still a little dazed by Iwaizumi’s response to what had essentially been a dare. He wanted to have some time to think about it. That, and everything else that had happened today. It was confusing to say the very least.

 

“I’m home,” he mumbled to the empty house as he dropped his things on the floor. He walked to his room, mechanically flopping into his desk chair, grabbing his laptop, and checking the comments on his story, as he always did after posting a new chapter. God knows what had been said this time.

  
  
  


oikawabae [6:22 AM]: yay 4 romanants! i hop their is sex soon!!!

 

thatswhatsheset [6:53 AM]: Me too!!!!!!

 

thegrandqueen [8:06 AM]: @thatswhatsheset i thought you were still banned.

 

iwasarms [8:07 AM]: ^

 

thegrandqueen [8:08 AM]: @iloveiwachan your writing is getting better. please give Iwaizumi self esteem, though

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [8:15 AM]: @thegrandqueen ban ended 2 days ago

 

thegrandqueen [8:17 AM]: great

 

ballsb4brawn [9:21 AM]: @iwasarms i swear you just wait around until you can use a ^

 

[deleted]

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [10:45 AM]: as per  Rule 13 , this comment was removed

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [10:45 AM]: @ballsb4brawn no bullying

 

thegrandmoderator (mod) [10:46 AM]: @mrsiwaizumihajime what strike are we up to?

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [10:48 AM]: @thegrandmoderator 10.75?

 

mrsiwaizumihajime (mod) [10:50 AM]: @thegrandmoderator we r literally sitting right nxt to each other

 

get2getheralready [11:02 AM]: @thegrandmoderator @mrsiwaizumihajime you guys literally comment on this one like 3x more than any other

 

settersdoitbetter [1:04 PM]: @iloveiwachan I can’t wait to see what high school brings! And I’m happy to see that you added a little bit of romance. Regardless of how far you plan to take it, it’s always fun to read <3

 

iwaoifangurl [1:39 PM]: Iwa’s topping n this 1, r8?

 

ewhyzoome [3:47 PM]: plz!!!!!!!!!!

 

iwaoi4ever [4:11 PM]: I like top Oikawa. I almost hope Iwaizumi tops in this one, though. He needs to take control. @iloveiwachan I’m glad Iwaizumi has romantic feelings towards Oikawa. It’s super cute. Why is Iwaizumi called a cave man so much, though? It makes me a little sad.

 

ballsb4brawn [5:11 PM]: Iwaizumi’s a top

 

iwasarms [5:57 PM]: ^

 

ballsb4brawn [6:40 PM]: @iwasarms ….

  
  
  


There were fewer comments this time, but this week had been fairly busy, so he decided not to let it bother him. Oikawa wondered absently about the deleted comment, though. Clicking through the site, he finally found the Rules and Regulations page, which probably had way more rules than any site needed. He quickly found Rule 13.

 

_ Comments containing unconstructive criticism are not allowed and will be deleted. The commenter will be given an automatic one-day ban and will have two strikes added to their account. _

 

Oikawa wrinkled his nose. That seemed a little harsh. He guessed it sort of made sense if you took into consideration the personalities of some of his fan girls, but just the same, he wished that he could have the option to view the comment. His mind drifted to other places, though, as he shoved his computer away.

 

He wanted to be near his best friend. In fact, he planned to talk Iwaizumi into rooming with him, thought he wasn’t sure how receptive the other boy would be to that, since he was constantly complaining about Oikawa’s eating and cleaning habits. That was beside the point, though. The main issue at hand was could he  _ handle _ being around Iwaizumi given his newly-discovered feelings? 

 

Iwaizumi’s reaction to the confession he received today had made Oikawa even more certain that his friend was heterosexual. And even if there was a slight chance that he was into boys, what were the odds that he would want Oikawa? Lately his friend had seemed to push him away every time Oikawa had tried to initiate any sort of physical contact. That hadn’t been the case before, but now he didn’t seem to want to touch Oikawa at all.

 

Well, with the exception of what he’d done on the walk home.

 

Oikawa imagined the way that Iwaizumi had looked earlier that evening in the alleyway. He wanted that to be real. He wanted Iwaizumi to look at him that way for real. He wanted it so badly.

 

Maybe Iwaizumi was catching onto him. Maybe he was starting to realize that Oikawa had very non-platonic feelings for him and was disgusted by it. If he ever figured that out, he knew that Iwaizumi would probably still be friends with him, but he had a feeling that there would be a distance between them. 

 

He couldn’t handle that. It would be better to suffer in silence than watch as Iwaizumi simultaneously tried to make Oikawa feel better while drawing away from him at the same time. 

 

He could try to comfort himself with the thought that he would get over this, but a small part of him knew that wouldn’t be the case. He’d had crushed before, and this was more than a crush. There was no moving past this.

 

This time, instead of starting on a new chapter, he rested his head against his desk and started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading <3 If you see any errors, please let me know :)


End file.
